David Elkind, a professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University, wrote a succinct response to the fact that some of our country’s schools are using “recess coaches” to help teach kids to play during their time away from the classroom. Because many schools are dropping recess in favor of more academic time and because children often favor gazing at computers and TVs over goofing around with siblings or friends, our kids are losing the benefits of unstructured time. Elkind believes that recess coaches might be more freeing than intrusive when they force children to play rather than sit around during class breaks. He wants to see kids get the advantages that come from being imaginative with one another, running around for exercise, and socializing (such as solving problems — he finds a correlation between a lack of knowing how to play with others and more bullying among peers).

Elkind does not condemn or deny the reality of changing times. He writes, “We have to adapt to childhood as it is today, not as we knew it or would like it to be. The question isn’t whether recess coaches are good or bad — they seem to be with us to stay — but whether they help students form the age-old bonds of childhood. To the extent that the coaches focus on play, give children freedom of choice about what they want to do, and stay out of the way as much as possible, they are likely a good influence…In any case, recess coaching is a vastly better solution than eliminating recess in favor of more academics.”

What do you think? Right now, I’m going to turn off the TV (which often entertains my boys while I write this blog) to kick off a game of hide-and-seek. It’s a small effort, and I’ll lean on electronics again (not always for worse), but I do think there are lots of things we can do as our children’s personal “recess coaches.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is coming out strong in an effort to more effectively protect our children from the harms of advertising (http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/dec06advertising.htm). Referencing the estimate that children view up to 40,000 ads per year — seen on everything from TV and billboards to the Internet and school bathroom stalls – the AAP worries that the exposure may lead to more problems with obesity, substance abuse, and poor nutrition.

The group has many ideas, including political advocacy to curb the advertising that reaches our kids. But the most important recommendation is to make our children more “media literate” to understand the messages being sent to them. I think media literacy is a great tactic because it accepts the reality of agressive advertising and suggests fighting back with education. Other than the excellent idea of turning off the TV more often, we must make our kids aware of what they’re seeing during normal children’s programming (all of those sugared-cereal ads!) and sports programming (how do commercials about erectile dysfunction affect them?). We should explain to our kids that some ads are fun to watch but the advertisers really want us to buy their products, even if they can be bad for our health.

To teach them more organically, it would be an interesting experiment to videotape your own commercial with your kids and ask them what their message and end goal are for that video. When possible, we may also want to use digital video recorders and teach our young ones to skip over the commercials while watching them via these recorders.

I know this will not come as a shock, but a new study finds that about 30-percent of U.S. children under 6 watch a lot of TV. The findings of the report from the Kaiser Family Foundation show that parents are encouraging the use of TV and other visial media (video games, DVDs, etc.) because they think it helps teach basic educational concepts. Another revelation is that more young kids have TVs in their bedrooms.

Some of this is a result of parents who grew up with TV, who believe they came out all right, so what’s the harm of watching? Another factor is that television is a capable babysitter because it transfixes kids, keeps them in one spot, and lets moms and dads get dinner ready or even go to the bathroom. The problem is with excessive viewing, which this report focuses on. I really think that, beyond 30 minutes to an hour of TV per day, letting kids watch the boob tube is not the way to go. Is it all right for them to watch a little more on occasion, especially when they’re viewing an age-appropriate feature film? Sure? That’s just realistic. But what we need to do, as parents, is teach our kids to get outside to play, to use Legos, to read (and read and read), and even just sit around with nothing to do. TV keeps young minds buzzing at a low flame, but never truly relaxes or stimulates them the way other activities do. Even Sesame Street beyond an hour is not a great use of time. And TV in the bedroom is just wrong, especially before the teenage years (let alone IN the teen years).

On the other hand, I do think that TV — in that small dose of 30 minutes to one hour – is fine, maybe even good. My wife and I don’t use it for our under two-child, but our boys over three do watch. For our 8-year-old, TV is a social connector. He talks about the shows he watches with his friend and they make up scenarios on the playground based on the shows. We sample all of the shows, though not all episodes, to determine the violence factor (we stopped all Power Rangers because of it). And we usually battle with the kids to turn off the TV when the time’s up. However, the conflict dies down once our middle child gets going with his bugs and our eldest dives into a chapter book.

Read the report and post your comments on my still-evolving ones. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/12948895.