To think watching this much tv in the car is unnecessary?

[Tory79]

Don't know whether to say something to dh or not....

He has an in car DVD player for dsd (8) - it's a godsend as she lives 150 miles away so it gets a lot of use on the way to and from our house!

However, she's a bit of a TV addict and it seems to now be the case that the DVD player goes on the second she gets in to the car, even if we are only driving 10m up the road! Personally I think dh should say only for journeys of eg 30m + (or more) but I don't know if that's reasonable or not.....

I think it's bugging me more because ds(2) is starting to ask for it every time he gets into the car with them, and I don't want to be in the position where he's fussing to watch something all the time!!

The silly thing is she's actually great at entertaining herself without tv, car games etc, I think dh can be a bit overly reliant on TV in General (for both ds and dsd) and although I've mentioned this a few times to him nothing has changed.

I think up to half an hour you shouldn't even necessarily need the radio on.

On a 400-mile drive last year we had a total of 30mins of "tv" and half of the rest of the time radio/audiobooks, CDs, etc.

There is a difference between just audio and having a screen as well, I think.

Children do need to learn how to be bored, IMHO.

Yes I totally agree. Although I do always have the radio on

When it's just me and ds in the car, we talk, play games, look for things out of the window, or he might do so e drawing or have a toy to play with, but he's also a great one for watching the world go by - he'll happily stare out of the window for ages!

But also like I say, dsd is actually very good at entertaining herself, this just seems to have become a habit...

Could it "need updating/mending/cleaning" for a weekend to break the habit, and just not make it back into the car?

we have one that we use on journeys of 2+ hrs but anything less than that and its audio CDs or the radio or I spy. My DCs spend A LOT of time in the car, minimum of an hour a day and DS in particular (4.5) would watch TV all day every day if we let him so TV in the car is only a very occasional thing. Having said that, I do think there is a bit too much paranoia about TV being bad in large amounts. I have let DS have a lot of TV this holiday as he needs a break (he's at school but v young in his year) and its how he relaxes. He uses what he watches a way to learn numbers, letters etc. Its not mindless crap most of the time.

Is she travel sick? Any journey over about 20 minutes usually sends one of mine into a tailspin of travel sickness and although they both wear travel bands watching something in the car is very useful. I used to be travel sick and would almost expect it as soon as I got into the car so my Walkman (old fart talking) went straight on, even if it was a journey of a couple of miles.

Oh yes fairy, I'm not anti tv at all, we watch plenty I feel like dh doesn't even give them the chance to entertain themselves though, tv just tends to go on straight away, whereas i leave it off for as long as possible. And for short car journeys it just feels completely unnecessary!

YANBU, staring out the window at passing cars/streets/rolling fields and letting your mind wander is a necessary part of travel IMO :o

Agree it could be 'broken' for a week and see if that makes a difference. Nothing wrong with a rule like "it only goes on if the journey is more than half an hour" or something

I agree - anything up to about 30-60 minutes probably doesn't need a TV - but as Ploppy says, if she gets car sick then the last thing she will want to do is read or draw. I always have the radio on, regardless of the length of journey, unless we're talking in which case I switch it off - I refuse to compete with a radio.

We take out the DVD players at the end of each long journey, and then refuse to put them back in unless we're going to be in the car for a while.

No ploppy, not travel sick at all.

everlong she can talk to us, play games etc it's the seeming inability to go for even 15 minutes without being entertained by a screen that drives me up the wall. No problem with it for long journeys though.

In that case it is a bit much. As mentioned above maybe it needs 'fixing'..

As long as it isn't having a negative effect on her attention span and concentration levels, you may find that you won't get your DP to see your POV.

I am constantly having to ask teen (and older) relatives, to leave their phone alone on days out, the constant need to have something to look at, having multiple conversations, is becoming engrained.

I can see the connection between sleep problems and not winding down, I fail to convince people that I know, this.

This is part of the debate "what parts of the modern lifestyle is not good for us", those that believe, "none of it", won't be convinced otherwise.

My ds (and me tbh) would be hideously car sick if there was a dvd/telly on in the car.

This is the parent's call. If they're allowing it, it's their lookout. Dc don't need to be occupied every second of the day.

Are we nearly there yet? (to finding an answer to this thread)

:o forallthesaints :o (now shush back there or I'll turn this thread around)

Good post birds