As you know, not all screen time is the same. While limits on any screen time are necessary, it’s also important to consider the content of your child’s screen time.
The most obvious aspect of that is keeping content kid-friendly, without undue exposure to adult topics or imagery that will resurface in their nightmares. It’s also great to lean towards educational content.
Now, a school psychologist is rating kids’ shows on an additional criterion: how engaging they are for kids’ brains.
TV Intelligence Is More Than Just Educational Content
Earlier this year, a new project called TV Intelligentsia launched. It does have sections for adult television, but what is really awesome about it is how it rates children’s TV.
Each show gets rated on three metrics.
Educational value is part of it, and the site rates each show on a few subfactors:
“This measures domain knowledge transfer, historical accuracy, scientific literacy, and cultural exposure. A documentary that teaches you how supply chains work scores high. A reality dating show does not.”
Then, though, it goes deeper. After all, a show where someone reads the dictionary in a monotone might rate high on educational content, but most viewers aren’t absorbing that. For kids, especially, actually engaging matters.
That’s why they also rate cognitive stimulation, which the team further breaks down into subcategories and rates based on factors such as how the show engages working memory, the vocabulary level in the dialogue, and how it introduces novel ideas.
Last but not least, as with the aforementioned dictionary reading, educational TV doesn’t teach if your child won’t watch it; it’s rated for entertainment quality. Even this isn’t a simple, subjective rating. It’s scored on factors like depth of emotional engagement, production quality, and story structure.
Check out one of TV Intellegentsia’s videos below.
What’s The Story Of TV Intelligentsia?
The school psychologist you’ll see rating kids’ shows in social media posts and on their website is Cordelia Witty, EdS., NCSP. She’s the co-founder of the site, along with Jordan Robinson, a board-certified surgeon. Both have an interest in wellness projects and in promoting overall well-being.
When it comes to children’s TV, Witty focuses on programming that does good work rather than just offering brain candy.
“She evaluates children’s media through a developmental lens — not just ‘is this safe?’ but ‘is this actually building cognitive, emotional, and social skills?’ Every show on TVI Kids is reviewed using the same three-dimension framework as the main platform, with additional attention to age-appropriate developmental milestones.”
As she explained earlier this month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released new standards that focus not just on the amount of screen time, but on the quality. However, nobody quite defined how “quality” would be rated.
What Are The Best Shows For Kids?
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood sits at the highest-rated by TVI Kids standards. He actually spoke directly to his audience, showed them new things, and talked to them about hard topics like death, losing a pet, or seeing scary things on the news. While it’s been more than two decades since the world lost Fred Rogers, his legacy lives on, and many episodes are still available to watch online today.
The second top-rated show is currently Sesame Street, which, after over half a century, continues to release new episodes and spinoffs and has brought classic episodes to YouTube to make them accessible to all.
These are followed by Spirited Away, Bluey, Magic School Bus, and my daughter’s current favorite, Numberblocks.
By contrast, Cocomelon gets a pretty low rating, as do Ryan’s World and Baby Shark, because they’re rather passive. Here’s what’s cool, though: when the site gives a low rating to a show, they offer a swap.
And no, they don’t say that your child can never watch something with a low rating. Adults and kids alike can have comfort shows.
However, if you’re trying to get the most out of your kids’ viewing time (on average, kids watch over 1,000 hours per year!) then you can make the swap.
What About Shows That Aren’t Mentioned?
While experimenting with the site’s general section, I was disappointed that Doctor Who wasn’t included. However, there are just so many shows out there to enjoy — Nielsen counted 817k in 2022 according to Nerdist — that it’s definitely a work in progress!
Witty and Robinson are actively inviting the public to chime in. If there’s a show your child loves and it’s not rated yet, you can drop a comment on the TVIKidz TikTok channel or use the contact information at the bottom of the TV Intelligentsia website to submit a request.
As you can see below, they’re constantly adding new shows to the site, and they’re listening to viewers and parents to determine which ones to prioritize, so don’t hesitate to reach out and make a suggestion.
