Thomas Haden Church Quotes

If you watch kids looking at something on television, even something that's produced for them and is supposed to be funny, what you'll notice is that they don't laugh.

It’s not whether children learn from television, it’s what children learn from television... because everything that children see on television is teaching them something.

For kids, multitasking electronically is common. But they are totally focused. You can tell a good story, and they listen.

I think the depth, what children can handle and what they're interested in, is much deeper than I think what people assume. I think it's why sometimes we make things too simple for them.

I would let my kids watch this stuff way before I'd let them watch something like 'Full House' that I think would make them stupid.

The things kids can do on screens can be really delightful - if they are age appropriate. But no, they shouldn't spend all their time on a screen; they should split up their time doing multiple, different things.

Kids cannot follow stories. They don't know what the hell is going on in a cartoon. They like to see funny visual things happening.

Empty heads, cognitive science has taught us, learn nothing. The powerful cultural and personal flexibility of our species is owed at least in part to our starting off so well-informed; we are good learners because we know what to pay attention to and what questions are the right ones to ask.

I think you're a good person or a todd by the age of eight.

This is ridiculous, I mean, wholly ridiculous. It never did any child any harm to have something that was a tiny bit above them anyway, and I claim that anyone who can follow Doctor Who can follow absolutely anything.

In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

Children take in more information than we'd like to believe.

Keep in mind that in 1985, I had a potential readership of over 50 million Americans. At that time, a good portion of those were under 30.

Their scrambled attention spans struck me as a metaphor for the way we get our doses of reality these days.

I think that distributors and marketing companies realise that there are a huge number of women over 40 who want to go the cinema and see films about themselves. Women of my age don't want to be force-fed with stuff about 25-year-olds.

The news appeals to the same jaded appetite that makes a child tire of a toy as soon as it becomes familiar and demand a new one in its place.

I just think people are so used to seeing me on shows like 'Vampire Diaries' and 'Pretty Little Liars,' which are more geared toward teens. But in reality, I could have a 12-year-old kid.

But I don't sit down and think: this is meant for children.

The newspapers and magazines, the theaters and the social reform movements, are more and more made for a public which looks only to be entertained and which has lost the power of sustained attention.

Every now and then, we hear parents commenting on the fearful things which motion pictures may do to the minds of children. They seem to think that a little child is full of sweetness and of light. We had the same notion until we had a chance to listen intently to the prattle of a three-year-old.

I really feel strongly that we don't need to dumb things down for children.

I've always felt that kids are a lot smarter than we've given them credit for, but we've never given them a chance to figure things out as they're watching television.

There was nothing wrong with having teen-age fans, but we were hoping to appeal to a much broader audience than the 13-to 17-year-olds.

With television, attention spans have been shortened. It's something we have to fight against: the dumbing down of the audience. To be part of an audience is a privilege. To be with the people on stage, to let them reach you. If you're doing a million other things, they won't reach you.

I have a very short attention span, which is funny. I mean, you'd watch me and think that I don't, but I actually do.