To think kids watching tv is a bit of a waste of their life?

[Amykins35]

My daughter is 5 and her father and I are separated. When she has contact, she usually watches at least 5 films over the course of a weekend. On the other hand, here we used to go to the cinema on some of my weekends before her baby sister was born and that was the only thing she watched. We didn't even have a TV at home until 4 months ago. In the winter we had a film night on my Fridays where we baked cakes then snuggled on the sofa with teddies to watch a film and eat our cakes. But now the weather is finally brightening up we'll be going to the park/walking the dog/playing in the garden on those Fridays and so she probably won't watch anything here til next winter.
I read a few weeks ago that kids in the UK watch an average of 3 hours tv per day and that makes me sad as I really do think its a waste of their lives. Also, I don't understand where people find time for their kids to watch tv - my daughter goes to bed much later than her friends but we still run out of time to do everything she/we wanted to do. A typical day is:
7.30: she wakes up and gets ready while playing with DD2
7.45: breakfast
8.00: leave to walk/scoot/bike 2 miles to school

After school:
I usually drive to collect her so we can pop home for a snack before after school activities which usually finish at 6. She then plays/draws/reads while I cook tea, tea usually finished by 7 when we walk the dog, back home for homework, bath, stories and bed usually around 8.45.

There just isn't time in the day for tv and I don't understand where people find the time for it. If DD isn't doing an activity she likes to trampoline/paint/have tea parties etc after school and I think the amount of TV she watches at her fathers is a waste of his contact time. Before I get flamed and told my DD needs to rest and relax which may be why she watches TV at her dads - drawing and listening to stories are relaxing too. My DD never asks to watch TV here even if worn out - which is very rare indeed! AIBU to think watching TV is a bit of a waste of children's lives when there are so many more fun things they could be doing?

Expat the part where the OP should get her beak out of how I raise my children or the part where I did my not so stealth and total lie post?

Peppa pig is on all day everyday in this house. OP you are smug and jugdy ok. Pdfo

What I don't understand is exactly when it was decided that every minute of a child's life has to be filled with doing something

OP just out of curiousity, is every minute of your life spent doing something? Do you never flop down on the sofa and watch tv or mumsnet?

It's not about children being unable to entertain themselves. Sometimes you don't want to do anything.

And-exactly what tee said

It's lovely for you if you want your 5 year old to be doing after school activities every night. Some parents think that's too much.

I don't think people need to post exactly what they do every day in order to justify what amazing parents with such busy schedules and worthy activities we have.

Well, I don't. Because it wouldn't be very interesting tbh.
I don't plan out every minute of the day.

mine get in from school at about 2.30.
For about an hour they do whatever they want. That can be anything from playing reading writing drawing or watching television. It depends what they want to do to be honest
Then we do some school work and play some games
Then tea and about 30 mins of television or play depends what they want
to do and then baths stories etc and bed

that could be 11/2 hours of tv a day. i'm fine with that

I try and limit what my children watch on television, but there are some really fab programmes. Some of the animal one like Barneys Latin America and Deadly 60 are really good.
I record some programmes as they are never on when we can watch them, but they love then along with things like Shaun the Sheep.
When I'm tired I relax watching television as so do my children and I think there is nothing wrong wit it asking as it isn't all day everyday

I don't know where to start with this...

Are you serious that you don't know how kids have time to watch TV? I think you'll find the average 5 year old does not have after school activities every day of the week...and until 6pm??? Your daughter must be exhausted! Two after school clubs is plenty! But in honesty you are no better than parents that do let their kids watch a bit TV...some parents use TV as a "babysitter", you use after school clubs as a babysitter. Children, especially 5 year olds, need time to unwind after 6 hours of school. Time to switch off, give their brain a rest and recharge their batteries. I think your schedule is ridiculous. And 8.45 is too late for bedtime.

My guess is your DD has no idea how to entertain herself as you always have an activity planned for her. She goes round to her dad's and she realises that he hasn't organised cake baking, he doesn't have chickens and she doesn't know what to do with herself. Dad also didn't think to book a synchronised swimming class in the morning and a junior judo class in the afternoon and is baffled by the fact that she doesn't know how to play outside by herself playing hopscotch on the patio or skipping with a skipping rope because mummy has never included it in her schedule. Ok so maybe he could take her to a park or something but the weather has been awful and some people like to chill out at home at weekends. So he puts the TV on. Yes, 5 films in one weekend is too much but I'll put money on the fact that it's an exaggeration.

Seriously where's her time to play? Not colouring or painting...that's just another activity you've arranged for her. I'm talking about imaginative play...dressing up, playing by herself with her dolls. You don't have to fill every minute of every day for her. Allow her some time to explore her imagination and entertain herself. Even you weekends...dancing in the morning, swimming in the afternoon. I'm all for giving children opportunities to discover passions, but to have something every day of the week and weekends is ridiculous. You sound like you are scared of the prospect of having a bored child on your hands.

Tantrums - I watch TV or mumsnet when baby is sleeping on me, otherwise I would rather be doing something better with my time. It's personal preference I guess and my preference for my child is to not watch TV because it turns her into a moody zombie and I would rather she be just play as she's out at school/activities so much she and I like to mak the most of playing when she's at home

Coffee: you're very presumptuous. Actually her favourite play is imaginative hence why she has teddy bears tea parties, dresses up, plays in her tent, with her dolls house etc. she is more than capable of playing by herself indoors and out. She has activities 4 days per week, they last an hour maximum so she has time to play before/after activity which end at 6pm. I don't use after school clubs as a babysitter, I'm there too watching when it'd be far easier to be at home with both children than trying to entertain baby while DD does her activity. 8.45 is not too late for bedtime considering the time she wakes - 11 hours sleep is plenty. She asks to go swimming every weekend - it's 2 hours out of an entire weekend - not spending the entire weekend doing activities

As one of the "TV on while I'm in the shower" offenders, if I were to do what the op does I would have to get up at 4.30 am to make sure it happened while our 2yo was asleep. (And today that would have been an hour too late). Maybe the 10 mins of Cloudbabies is what's making him push books into our hands all day and ask us to read them to him. But all thae stupid stories about talking animals! What rot! I should be using the time to do something worthwhile like teach him how to read music instead.

For what it's worth op I do think five films at the weekend is ott. But this sounds like a discussion you need to have with your ex. Not us.

I've spoken to him, he doesn't see the issue. Nor with letting her eat an entire tube of Pringles while watching said films but then he is obese and lazy so it's Normal for him

8.45pm is your 5 year old's bed time?

Well, put a different face on, OP because you can't be wearing your smug one when your kid doesn't get to sleep until almost 9 at night.

She must be knackered after doing all the things your force her to do and them making her stay up that late. Poor little thing. :(

Oh my goodness. The time she goes to bed is irrelevant - it's the amount of sleep she gets that's important. She gets 11 hours which is plenty for a child of her age. She is never tired at school and even at bedtime she's rarely tired and would happily stay up much later if I allowed her to. I don't bloody 'force' her to do things or 'make' her stay up late. I don't know about other people's 5 year olds but mine has a mind of her own - if she didn't want to do an activity she wouldn't do. If she was tired shed say so and go to bed.

I think it is relevant. You're over-stimulating her,too. Which is probably why she is wired and not tired at a normal bedtime (you're saying she would stay up later. Mine is ready for bed at 7 and sleeps until 7) You can over-stimulate without a television.

Who makes the choices for her to go to every after-school club going? Does she sign herself up?

"I've spoken to him, he doesn't see the issue. Nor with letting her eat an entire tube of Pringles while watching said films but then he is obese and lazy so it's Normal for him"

He sounds more fun than you though, tbf.

The weekend: when most people kick back a bit and relax (and maybe eat a few treats too, if you're feeling really crazy) Don't you think your daughter deserves to have some down-time and a few treats? She deserves it and probably needs it, with the very crammed life she leads.

My DS1 is 14. He does 4 activities after school and 2 at the weekend. His choice.By Thursday he is very tired and spends his free time laying on his bed watching films on his Ipad. I cant imagine how tired a 4 year old must be.

I think with the schedule you have for your DD which rightly or wrongly is packed with lots of different things, its a nice change - different in itself for your DD to relax and watch films with your ex.

I think its healthy actually for one parent to be different to the other, if you are so against telly I think its healthy for her dad to be pro telly.

FWIW I adored films when I was little, I adore films now, and I think they have their place. As for other TV, most of her friends will be watching it and its a strong topic of conversation amongst peers.

Relax, she is doing far more than most 5 year olds.

Obviously you have found the activities for her, I doubt she did the research, found the club and took herself there did she?

Sometimes 4 year olds just need to be 4. and sometimes that includes watching tv and eating Pringles.

Does she do Kumon maths, OP? Please say she does.

YABU.

Agree with coffee, you do seem to use clubs as a baby sitter. Yes you might be there, but that isn't the same as just relaxing together at home. Some people do that watching TV, some don't.

I would say that, rather like Theodora, my fondest memories are of a spot of Will O' The Wisp, but definitely with a viscount biscuit!

you say it doesn't bother her, and it won't now. she's five. but when she gets older, she will feel left out if you don't let her watch tv.

my dad was very strict with regards to the TV - i never watched soaps. i was never allowed to watch the simpsons until i was about sixteen (i'm only 24 so it's not like it was some new programme when i was growing up), and he was also very strict with regards to junk food and drinking fizzy drinks.

i hated it as a teen because i felt so left out - i couldn't join in with regular conversations and i couldn't even talk about trying new things at mcdonalds or anything, which is pretty important when you're thirteen! when i left home at 18, i lived on a diet of junk, a lot of mcdonalds and diet coke became my addiction. kids needs everything in moderation. banning things like TV outright never benefitted anyone.

I wish my youngest two would watch the bloody telly sometimes. They are totally not interested in it (believe me I have tried ). They are five and two and I really do wish they would go and watch it when I'm cooking dinner, they will not leave me alone and I get so stressed.

But then I don't watch a lot of telly either, I just can't be arsed, I can never find the tv controller anyway.

My 5 and 2 year old are rarely asleep by 9. I have tried to get her to sleep earlier but no go. They are in bed but are awake but luckily both sleep in till gone eight am

My oldest two were always asleep by seven and awake by five am. Crappy sky movie films were a godsend at that time of the morning.

I've got it!

You are aspiring to be Gwyneth Paltrow, aren't you, aren't you?

Why did you have a child with such a lazy, obese Pringles munching monstrosity btw?

It is all a waste of time though really isn't it? In a couple of hundred years the bears from the picnics will be dust, nobody will know or care how well your DD could swim, the cupcakes, again, lost in time. Ben and Holly are just the same, a short footnote perhaps in a local history book mentioning Paultons Park, if they are lucky.

What does any of it matter? Why do we even bother doing anything? Even if you create, art, write, a masterpiece, a classic, nobody will really understand you or know you once you are dead, because they will be interpreting your work through their own experiences. We just get lost. God, why did you have to start this thread? I am never leaving the house again. That's it.

Gwyneth - is that you?!

It's always seen as an open field to mock and jeer on these threads

I happen to agree with the op but if I didn't I wouldn't question her choices nor call her smug

If it were cultural differences the jibes and digs would be seen as racist

Horses for courses in my book