Do you have the tv on in the background all day when you are home ?

[IcandothisactuallyIcan]

I don't and my DH says I'm weird as whenever he gets home he puts the tv straight on.

So I'm at home with our nearly one year old all day. DH says I'm the only mum who doesn't watch daytime tv in the background whilst playing/looking after DD.

I didn't have the TV on with my older DS either, although he had daily some tv time everyday once he could focus on it (so from 18 months onward maybe.) My DS had a speech delay and my DH says it because the house is so quiet due to no TV. I of course I do talk to the kids. I do however look at my phone for texts and MN a bit , but try not to all the time, so I guess that's the modern reading a book whilst looking after the kids. He could be right that I'm unusual. I suppose I've never thought to have the tv on and only put it on for the kids to watch stuff. I hadn't considered having bargain hunt on whilst playing cars. Maybe I'll try it for lockdown 2, instead of going out and having occasional company.

try radio 4, will be good for D.C. to hear lots of speech even when you’re not talking to him

My understanding is that having the radio on constantly is as bad for child speech development as the TV - they need to see mouths moving and to learn speech in individual interaction, and having the background noise makes it harder for them to make out the specific sounds of you talking. People just somehow 'feel' that nice, middle-class radio 4 must be better for children than This Morning!

I used to have it on all day until my DD started focusing on it and getting distracted. Now it only goes on when watching something specifically, especially when DD is home. I grew up in a house where the tv was always on. It always is still on at my parents house!

No. The TV is off here unless we want to watch something. I can't stand background noise and prefer silence.

No - children are bigger now but I only ever had the TV to watch something specific. It’s actually bad for their emerging speech to have it on in the background all day

With DS1 I never had the tv on past the initial newborn breastfeeding all the time phase. He only had tv from around age 18m or 2 and his speech was/is advanced.

DS2 was born just before lockdown so the tv was on most of the time - DS1s cartoons or DH watching the news while wfh.

No. I don’t want the toddler looking at it. She has CBeebies in the morning and before dinner when her big sisters are home. I sometimes put something on my phone when I’m hanging the washing but otherwise no.

No daytime TV here - I do have the radio on all day.

Yes

I like noise so TV or music. Normally TV though as my dog watches it religiously

How does your husband know so much about the viewing habits of mums at home ?

I don’t watch anything for me in the daytime. The tv is only on when the children are watching something. We turn it off when they are playing otherwise they get distracted. As a previous poster said, studies have shown that background noise can effect speech development.

i have the radio on all day,
i hate it when someone normally my dd turns it off

No, can't bear having the TV on if nobody is watching it. It's also a waste of electricity! I also hate background noise.

Always on. I hate it too quiet. I heard from a speech therapist before that it is good to have the television on in the background.

No TV before in the house before 5pm. And even then it's only a programme we sit down to watch and then off again. In my opinion screen on all day is unhealthy. I do have the radio on though. Children learn to speak by copying real people around them, not tv people. Read books, sing rhymes etc to help with speech delay

I only watch DVDs on TV so want to sit down and watch them.

I used to have brainless films on if I was marking school-work lite, but now that I use Dictate, it picks up the bloody TV/radio and before I know there's half a page of Avatar.

I'm used to the sound of silence now.

i hate the tv on when no one is watching it.

I feel the same intolerance towards needlessly prattling televisions that some MNers seem to feel towards endlessly prattling children. Absolutely couldn't have coped with it being on all the time.

And if your dh thinks not having the telly on causes speech delay, how does he think people in their 50s and 60s learnt to speak? There wasn't any daytime television when I was a child. I can speak perfectly fluently. I learnt from people.

If I’m in the living room doing something then the tv is on in the background (unless I’m reading or making phone calls). If I’m upstairs in the study where there isn’t a TV then I’ll have a podcast on

I love the sounds from outside- so beautiful.
Especially in summer when I can leave my windows open.

How old are all the people that are saying no?

The only person I know amongst family and friends that has the television on from waking to going to bed is my next door neighbour. She's in her late 80s.
She does it because, since her husband died, she feels lonely when there's nobody there.
She does try to find something she's interested in though, rather than leaving it just droning away in the background.

However, when I was working I used to do home visits and I'd say the majority of people used to have the television on when I arrived.

Occasionally it would be turned off while I was there, but more often the sound was just turned off or down.
I eventually used to try to sit at the opposite end of the room to talk to them, so they'd have their back to the tv.
Otherwise I could see their eyes continually flicking to the screen over my shoulder.
These were visits they'd requested, were arranged at a time to suit them (eg not during "Doctors" or something) and needed a reasonable amount of concentration on both our parts.

When I started the job I used to ask them politely if they wouldn't mind turning it off, but a significant majority would get a bit shirty about that and a few refused, which didn't help the visit go well, so I gave it up as a bad job.

@ExclamationPerfume

Always on. I hate it too quiet. I heard from a speech therapist before that it is good to have the television on in the background.

That’s an extremely unusual view.

Actually tv is considered bad for childrens speech development, no tv for a few years and then child specific tv shows as a treat are better for them.

Mine are older now but when home alone I sometimes have the news channel or something chat related like This Morning, but often I just get annoyed with that and switch it off again or get caught up watching mindless shite and feel I've wasted my day off!

Stick with what you're doing if it suits you, in the long term I suspect it's better for you and your dc. Who cares what others do?!

Nope. I have a radio in the kitchen and that's always on. The TV only really comes on after dinner if we're watching things. No point in having the TV on downstairs when I'm working upstairs.

I can't imagine a speech therapist recommending tv. Children learn through watching others speak, interacting with them, repeating back what to say and reading and playing.

TV is passive not interactive.