Shakira doesn’t let her kids watch TV & here’s why maybe you shouldn’t either

While promoting her new film, Zootopia, Shakira revealed that her son Milan had watched the animated flick in Spanish and English, but her 1-year-old Sasha wasn't allowed to enjoy movie time just yet. She told Telemundo, "Pediatricians in America say that kids cannot watch TV until they are 2 years old, so he's going to have to wait one more year to watch Zootopia."

In a recent survey conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 90 percent of parents admitted to letting their children under the age of 2 watch television or electronic media. They warn that this can cause delayed language development since a baby's brain grows drastically in the first years of life.

In 2015, a study conducted by Emory University found that babies can learn signs from television time. The three-week long case study found that babies who were taught from signs in-person, learned just as much when learning the material on television.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also warns that babies watching television can cause over stimulation, which could cause your baby, under the age of 2, to suffer from long term attention issues.

One of the pros of television time is that it allows infants to socially connect to children older than them. This was confirmed in a study published in the journal Science Daily. One of the authors Dr. Shira Gabriel explains, “Humans can use technologies, like television, to provide the experience of belonging when no real belongingness has been experienced."

HealthyChildren.org reports that television could function as mental junk for a baby's brain. They caution that this could affect an infant's short-term memory, since the child absorbs so many images and language that they're incapable of processing at such a young age.

Television is a part of everyday life in most households. The activity can be part of a child's routine and could cause positive family time and bonding.

According to RaisingSmartKids.org, watching television under the age of 2 has no educational benefit and actually slows down reading comprehension when the child gets older. Instead, babies benefit more from live play and reading time.

For babies and toddlers learning more than one language, television could have a positive influence. According to Live Strong, exposing a baby to listening to Spanish-language networks helps them develop an ear for a new language.

The content your baby watches matters a lot. Tuning them into interactive learning shows like Sesame Street or Dora The Explorer can help spark their curiosity and love for learning.