Michael Rich, MD, MPH, FAAP

When Michael Rich, M.D., MPH, FAAP, conjures up Huck Finn during his NCE plenary address, he won't be selling the idea of Huck's friend, Tom Sawyer, that whitewashing a fence is fun, but he will be embracing Tom and Huck's adventurous childhood attitudes.

Dr. Rich will expand on the back-to-nature message of the speaker who precedes him, author Richard Louv, by calling for a balance of a modern life that does not lose track of the of the important role of creativity, free play and the great outdoors.

"I run a research center that looks at the effects — positive and negative — of kids' media use on their physical, mental and social health. One of the things I have been concerned about is that kids have become increasingly indoors, inactive and inattentive to their internal worlds and the natural world, in part, because of video games, surfing the web and watching TV," said Dr. Rich, who will present "Finding Huck Finn: Reclaiming the Primary Experience of Childhood from the Electronic River" (P1060) October 2.

Throwing the TV out the window is not his message. Instead, it is more about balancing TV and computer use with rich and varied activities that promote healthy development, said Dr. Rich, who is director of the Center on Media and Child Health, Children's Hospital, Boston, and an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

"This is not anti-media, it is about placing our media use in perspective and not making it our default activity," he said. "I think of it as a balanced diet. Media have to be balanced with free play and creative outdoor activities. We may see building forts and ‘capture the flag' as old-fashioned, too risky or just much harder than pushing a button on a remote, but they are essential to optimizing your child's health and learning."

Childhood is a "special, unique and precious time" to help develop a robust approach to life, Dr. Rich said.

"We must recognize the positives of getting outdoors and getting dirty rather than having to sanitize everything because your kid got dirty," he said. "Fear of infection and child kidnapping have driven otherwise reasonable parents to avoid letting their kids do anything adventurous.

"This has implications beyond child health. How are kids supposed to understand that global warming is a problem if they are terrified when they see an ant? How will they achieve leadership in technology and science if they never learn to build something they dream up? They need to get back in touch with their own imaginations, free play, getting dirty, skinning their knees and climbing trees."

Pediatricians think about the effects of media on obesity or violence, but they also must recognize that media are displacing important aspects of growing up and child development that are essential to physical and mental health, Dr. Rich said.

"In our rush to embrace all of the cool media things we can do, we have ignored the basic fact that children need to be children," he said. "At the risk of controversy, I say ‘bring back boredom.' Kids need boredom to learn to reflect and think about themselves and the world, to look at patterns of clouds in the sky and figure out what they look like.

"Remember, the theory of relativity grew out of the mind of a bored patent clerk who used to take long walks by the river and watch the swirls and eddies in the water. We have to stop being so type A in our child rearing and find the space and fresh air kids' need to grow, learn, innovate and reflect."