Kids and TV -- How Much is Too Much?

reads alot
Yes she does read allot. Thats how we discovered she was gifted because she was reading by age 3. She wanted a sign language book at age 5 and taught herself. She will read anything. Her grandmother always jokes with her when she gives books as a gift. She says "lets see if you can make this book last more than 2 days". But that matters not because she will read them over and over again. I think her love of reading is because of the way she put herself to sleep from a young age. Instead of allowing her to fall asleep in my bed and then move her, i set her up with books and read along tapes. She loved them. The tape would beep when it was time to turn the page, so i think seeing and hearing the words over and over is the reason she was able to read at such a young age. She is a complete joy to me. And I do realize how lucky I am with all the crap in the world today. I thank god everyday for her.

There's the balance. That's the key, I think.

I agree with you sozobe - moderation is the key. Also, what types of shows your children are watching. I frequently will watch a cartoon or children's movie or educational type program with my daughter. For two reasons - to make sure it is appropriate for her and to use it as an educational tool. I will frequently ask her questions about the show to get her thinking and to be more pro-active while watching. Reading I think is great. I remember when I was a teenager, I would prefer reading over watching most TV shows. My parents never limited my TV watching, but I was preferred being with my friends, playing and reading to watching TV. So I feel as long as those options are available to children, they will choose them over TV. Sometimes as sozobe stated if you make it a no-no, the child will want it all the more. Whereas if you do not make it a big deal, but keep it in moderation, with other activities available, the child will be fine.

As long as your child is involved in other activities, I do not see the harm in it. If you feel your niece, littlek is fighting about watching TV, try asking her if she wants to play with you or go outside and play with you. Usually children will prefer the attention from those they are close to over watching TV.

I also agree with phoenix and that is why, parents should view any programs with children or even view them prior to ensure it is within your values and not too violent, scary, etc. same as you would with buying a book. Again as with commercials, communicating is key. Unfortunately, children are going to be exposed to advertising in almost every aspect of their life. Including radio, newspapers, magazines, bill boards walking down the street, other children, etc. It is important for parents to communicate your values, including consumerism and materialism.

Eoe, my daughter has her first library card - she is 5. She loves going to the library and picking out books. Library time? Not sure. My daughter is starting kindergarten this fall and they do have a library and the opportunity to pick out books, so my guess is they do have library time. I will ask at her orientation. My daughter also "reads" to her baby sister. She mimics the words she remembers and makes up others. It is just wonderful to see them both engrossed in a book, whether, they are actually "reading" real words or not.

That's a great start, Linkat.

i think the key on the television factor is not the let it replace the parent. THAT IS KEY. as a 16 year old, i helped raise my little sis, age 6, to be able to read for hours at a time. she watches as much TV as she wants, but TV also is a #2 to any event in the household. the key is to foster the reading at an early age and let the kid take off by themselves but make them realize TV is not important.

my parents raised me slightly differently. due to mostly economic circumstances, i was not able to have much reading material at home. television was there, but at an early age, they could not afford to leave me home alone, and literally, they weren't able to send me to a day care. so i ended up at the library every day after school. because they couldn't take care of me that much, television sort of became a foster parent. BUT, my dad would never let me watch cartoons when he was around. NEVER! when i came from the library stocked with books, my dad and i would watch the animal channel/discovery channel/TLC/CNN all the time.

because of that, i was always months, if not years, ahead of my peers in not only the school curriculum, but in the general accumulation of knowledge. my sister probably will embark on a similar journey, but with better results due to a better finacial foundation.

i would recommend to those parents out there to NEVER force their kids to leave the library because of time restraints, try to leave when your kids are ready. also, never prolong any stay. the most upsetting thing to my sister is when my parents are half an hour late and she just burned through 5-10 kid books.

TV will change your kid's outlook on certain things. It's up to you to let them learn from SNL or from writings of scholars.

I'd missed some of these posts, very interesting. I very much agree with eoe that balance is the thing, moderation. You make some excellent points, Linkat. And welcome, imatasian, sounds like you've done a great job of helping to raise your sister. And yes, your written language is well beyond many of the 16 year-olds we see on this forum.

I'd come here to say that Miss Jane Brody seems to have the answer to my original question -- 10 hours a week is too much. Great article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/health/03brod.html

Excerpts:



Those are highlights, highly recommend that you read the whole article. The "Two minute mind" part was especially interesting. It also has recommendations for setting limits. Good stuff.

This has helped focus what I'd already been thinking. It's not "never", it's "occasionally, with limits." I think I'm going to make more of an effort to keep the total time in front of the TV below 10 hours a week, though.

WHOA, it just got DARK! Mongo storm coming. Gonna go see what's up...

kids and TV
At the younger ages Nick Jr and PBS suffice and remove the incessant marketing of junk (toys and food) to our kids and the TV can be an effective babysitter BUT you cannot control everything your kids will be exposed to - one can go TOO far.

TV shows are a topic of conversation (as are PS2 games) amongst the K-5 set as are sports and books - sensory deprivation wont help develop independant though or social skills.

I try to take adverstisements as a teaching moment - (when I can that is - even watching the PGA championship I had to control the remote to avoid explaining erectile disfunction!) Taking the opportunity to explain what the ads are for and how they push buyers to purchase good they dont need and otherwise wouldn't want. I watch the TV with my kids - I dont think its safe/wise to have them have access to cable TV without parental supervision. Did anybody get as incensed as I did during last year's worlds series when Fox was advertsing for 'Skin' well before 8PM! Porn at 6PM.... couldnt believe it.

I just got cable and didn't know what the channels were... was flipping through with the kid next to me (I know, bad idea, never again) and went past an ACTUAL porn channel. It was "scrambled" or whatever, but in effect it was just a split screen, diagonally, and the guy pumping away was clearly visible. In my haste to change the channel I pushed the wrong button, and he stayed pumping away on screen as I tried to cover sozlet's eyes with one hand. It wasn't so bad as these things go (you could see him pumping but not ahem what he was pumping), and I infinitely prefer sex to violence, if she has to see one of the two.

Meanwhile, I saw a bit of a totally weird show today -- "Lazy Town". It's Nick Jr., which generally is OK, but this show is oddddd... It's some sort of combination of people, plastic puppets, and people with plastic puppet prostheses (er, in the context of the preceding paragraph, let me make clear I'm referring to chins and noses and such), and a hyper-perky pink-haired girl who is anglo but vaguely anime-y. The premise is evidently that there is a villain who has managed to make the denizens of "Lazy Town" addicted to video games (but not TV -- convenient) and eating candy. But they're not fat or anything.

So the perky pink girl and a hero named Sportacus (Sportacus??! Who has a skin-tight spandex outfit) like, energize the town, or something.

It was really weird, we only watched about 5 minutes.

My kids are allowed to watch tv after dinner and homework is done. I don't limit the amount because most of the time they are outside instead. I agree you have to be careful and monitor what they watch because there are so many bad things on these days. My 8 year old was watching cartoons on nick jr and when i came back to check he was watching adult swim which is an adult cartoon! I immediately changed the channel and he was reprimanded and told that he was never to watch that show again. Parents have to be very careful and always see what there kids are watching because you never know what is on.