How much TV do your children watch?

[ayesar]

What are your kids ages and how much TV do they watch a day? My kids are 3 and almost 5 and their total screen time (tv and iPad) is usually 1-1.5 hours a day. I feel like that is too much.

[Daisyandbabies]

Perhaps some would see me as a bad mother but I have kids tv on in true background whenever we are home. Couldn't say how much they actually watch, probably not much. They're 20 months and 4 years. My 4 year old is on the iPad quite a lot, I would say about 2 hours a day as I will let him watch it when he wakes and eats breakfast before preschool. He watches educational youtube videos about the solar system (his choice) and I don't mind. The rest of the day he's at pre school or at the park or museums etc so I can't see it doing any harm

[Afreshstartplease]

We have it on in the background too, all three DC are very busy during the weeks with long days at nursery/school and they all like to have a lie on the sofa and watch some TV. Some days more than others. I couldn't genuinely say how much they watch.


They will choose when to go off and play, they play in the garden most days too and play with different toys

Honestly don't see the big drama about having the TV on

[WipsGlitter]

Loads. I don't care. DS2 has SN and he likes watching tv. He can't do lots of things - ride a bike, play games so I don't mind. DS1 watches his iPad but also plays outside a lot.

[SavoyCabbage]

Mine are much older (9&12) so obviously they are out of the house a lot more! They each have an hour of tv before bed and probably two hours on weekend days.

[winchester1]

Very little as they aren't really into it yet (15months and 2.8 yrs) even if I put a kids show on, which I do on weekend mornings they tend to not actually watch it. Also been told they don't play with the tablet at nursery as they just aren't interested yet which I guess is because we don't have one at home.

I don't think 1-1.5hrs is too much though esp if its broken up over the day and they aren't neglecting other things and demanding tv, what's the harm.

[lenibose]

I am in the opposite camp. Almost none. I find TV as background noise very irritating. And other than sport we don't watch TV. In the whole of last week eg DS watched about 20 mins of TV. He is 4. We have always been that way so he is quite used to it. This is not a principled stand on screen time- it's just that we don't watch a lot of TV unless there is sport (so Sunday we will have it on for the marathon).

[CoodleMoodle]

Depends on the weather/situation. If we're busy then hardly any. If we're having a lazy day then plenty. Including time on my tablet/phone. We do loads of other stuff too, and it doesn't worry me at all. We watch lots more in the winter or in awful weather.

DD is two. And currently watching Peppa on my tablet whilst DH and I wake up a bit. We're all happy!

[TimeOfGlass]

We have it on a lot in the background too.

But no screen time in the morning before school / nursery.

[readingrainbow]

Too damn much. I try to keep things reined in during the school week, but we are living on top of each other in a too-small rented house so sometimes the tv keeps them from killing each other. Looking forward to a change in circumstances which will lead to less tv. she hopes.

[Packergator]

We tend to have TV on in the background, more for my sanity's sake rather than anything else! DS is 8 months and is often off crawling or climbing or playing rather than sitting in front of the TV. We're out and about most days (weather permitting) so I really don't let it worry me. I know there are studies that link TV viewing at an early age to poorer academic performance/concentration/intelligence, etc. (actually, interestingly, I came across a study recently that showed that the opposite was true in terms of academic performance- much to the chagrin of the 'principled' no TV brigade- will see if I can find the link) but my mum openly admits that she used to leave the TV on for most of the day when my siblings and I were little, and we are now all graduates/postgrads with professional jobs. So don't sweat it if they watch a couple (or more) hours of TV a day!

[Packergator]

Just to add to the above; I'm not just sitting on the sofa glued to the TV whilst DS is crawling and playing...I'm down on the floor with him, interacting and talking with him constantly...I just find silence sort of uncomfortable. Maybe this is my hang up from watching TV as a small child, but I have to have some sort of background noise, even if I'm reading/studying. To this day when I'm at work and I'm working on a piece of analysis that's quite involved I have to put my headphones in and listen to a podcast or music or something. It actually helps me to concentrate! The way I see it is that the music/story/whatever opens a conduit into my brain and once this is opened, EVERYTHING goes in. Plus it stops me being distracted by other things. I know a lot of people think this is bullshit and maybe it's a mild form of ADD, but it hasn't stopped me from getting a degree/MA/teaching qualification though! When I was teaching I used to have real sympathy for the kids who wanted to have headphones in whilst working because it helped them to concentrate, but I had to reinforce the College's archaic policies and tell them to take them out...one of the many reasons I left FE...

I think it'd be a different kettle of fish if you did just abandon DC in front of the television though, without any interaction (not suggesting that's what you do at all, op).

[Whattodiddlydo]

DS is 8 and has a few hours a day screen time, he does other things too so I don't see a problem.

[Fairylea]

We have it on in the background all the time too. Dd aged 4 and 13. We sort of dib in and out of things, it's quite rare for everyone to sit and actually watch something to the exclusion of everything else. I grew up with the tv always on and it's uncomfortable to me to have silence in the background. We don't have it very loud, just loud enough to hear if we want to.

[Marzipants]

We used to have it on on the background but DS1 (4.5) would watch the test card, and getting him to do anything else (including going to the toilet!) was proving to be a nightmare. Now we have it on the iPlayer, so they have to choose a programme to watch, if they ask first. But I think they still probably watch more than 1.5 hours a day. They are outside a lot and love colouring, painting, playdoh etc, but I'd never get anything useful done if it wasn't for Beebies.

[ayesar]

I'm surprised to see how many people leave the tv on for background noise. My brother does the same in his house, and I think BECAUSE the tv was on all day his son didn't watch it. There was nothing novel about it. In my house we literally never turn on the tv unless we are putting a show on for the kids. We only watch tv for ourselves after the kids go to bed. So they actually never see us watching tv. The reason I thought it might be too much is because they do ask for it, and when they are playing if they get bored they ask for tv. I want them to be able to entertain themselves more. Anyway it looks like their screen time is not excessive so I'm going to relax.

[kiki22]

We have quite a lot I love TV don't listen to the radio or music so I have it on in the background usually DS has picked up the habbit. Today we are having a day in I'm not feeling well so am pottering about with Netflix running and DS is in the living room tired from a bad nights sleep playing cars and has wild kratts on we will do it all day. We have been out every day this week and are out tomorrow so it's fine. I think TV is only a problem if you do nothing else but stay in day after day watching TV and using TV to keep kids quite and out the way.

[ImogenTubbs]

DD is 2.8 and watches up to two hours on an 'average' day. She's not hooked and does plenty of other imaginative and energetic play, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Some days she watches none at all and there's no issue. If she were nagging me to watch TV all the time, we'd have a problem.

[uhoh2016]

I don't limit screen time at all. It depends on the day for example I don't think they watched any tv yesterday as they were at football then played out for the rest of the day. The TV has been on all morning today as we're having a lazy morning due to it raining were all still in pj's. They don't sit and watch it constantly though they'll do other things. At the min the tv is on but they're playing with Lego too

[Packergator]

kiki22, I also love TV! It feels almost criminal to admit this sometimes...judgey pants people with their 'why don't you have any proper, wholesome hobbies instead of just gawping at the idiot box?'. Well, you can keep your organic yoghurt knitting; you're welcome to it. I also like video games.

TV has come a long way. It's storytelling for our generation. Shakespeare was once entertainment for the unwashed masses and look how lauded he is now. Obvs if you're sat on your arse watching The Kartrashians all day, that's slightly different...

[kiki22]

I do watch the Kardashians haha I can't help myself its so bad it's addictive. I don't see the problem I read, I work out several times a week I take ds out loads if I want to sit on my arse n watch tv at night I will, I'm not a crafty type of person knitting and making random stuff sounds deathly boring to me.

Ds has a busy wee life too so if he wants to sit and lose himself in paw patrol so be it 😁

[mumsrthebest]

TV is always on

[knittingbee]

DS is noticeably much worse behaviour-wise when he's had too much TV. So we have Milkshake on in the morning and CBeebies goes on at 5pm until bedtime, and that's it. DD is a Peppa Pig maniac and gets extra TV time on the one day in the week I don't work (while DS is at school) to watch the puddle-jumping porker on Netflix, which gives me time to unpack shopping or whatever. The TV doesn't seem to have the same effect on her as it does for DS.