TV watching policy for kids.

[CurlewKate]

I was chatting to my DS and her boyfriend last night about the TV they watched as kids. It turns out that dd, who has a brother 4 years younger was made (by me!) to watch TV that was suitable for him when they watched together. So she watched stuff that was really too young for her unless he was in bed or doing something else. Her boyfriend, who has a brother 4 years older than him watched TV suitable for the brother- so too old for him.
Which route would/did you pick?

If they were watching tv together it was more likely to be tv aimed at the older child (3 years difference)

she watched stuff that was really too young for her unless he was in bed or doing something else.

I think that's fine - it's only tv.
I think that things on the tv need to be appropriate for whoever is in there watching it. So I wouldn't have a younger child watching something that was only suitable for the older child, in the same way I wouldn't have a child watching something that I wanted to watch but that was only suitable for adults.

Edited to add that I am an older sibling with a younger sibling 6 years younger. I don’t think my mum was wrong to stop my 9/10 year old sister watching teenage shows when I was ~15/16. A smaller gap of a couple of years it probably matters much less.

(I remember a lot of Horrible Histories when youngest was about 4/5!)

it was aimed at the older kid. There wasn't too much of an age gap though, and tbh, dd liked the stuff ds watched.

didn't help that i loathed baby tv and would rather watch cbeebies than have my brain melt out my ear.

once the older one went to school dd had the tv to herself, and ds got it when he got home.

they both stopped watching it about aged 8 and switched to netflix on their games consoles.

Mine at 6 and 8 don’t tend to watch tv together these days - one on the tv and another on a tablet. So they both watch what suits them.

I suppose I should have added that this was nearly 20 years ago-so no other screens available!

They decide together what to watch. It helps that DS has older tastes than his age and DD has younger so she'll happily watch Cocomelon (he's 2) and he'll happily watch Disney or paw patrol.