should Dd 13 have a tv in her room?

[tearsandtiaras]

Dd dad walked out on us in January. We are both doing well.

dd now wants a tv in her room, but I feel like she is a bit too young to be in her room all the time. i often give her free reign of the living room and tv and go to my room to watch tv

Aibu? At what age did you child have a tv in their room?

for context Dd has a phone and gaming platforms which she is allowed in her room

No TVs upstairs in our house, we have 1 in the living room and 1 in the family room.
The kids all have a laptop and can watch Netflix on them but they go off at night.
It’s bad Feng Shui to have a tv in the bedroom.

Yes it can be isolating, yes it can be a distraction, but nobody seems to be bothered about all the exposure to sex, violence, bad language etc a TV can provide. Only the other night (insomnia) I was channel hopping and very nearly had to wash my eyeballs with bleach. Ended up turning the infernal thing off.

Absolutely get her a tv if she wants one. It’s no different than an iPad etc. It will also be nice when she has friends round and you want to watch something different.

My DD has had a tv in her room since she was nearly 8. It's underneath her bed so she can't lie in bed watching it but it is a distraction. I don't want one in my room though and the YouTube videos she watches were annoying so we thought it would be better in her room

MN is generally very anti-TV in bedrooms, in my experience.

Personally I don't see an issue. Teenagers and adults have very different tastes in TV and as an adult, I wouldn't want to be banished to my room so my teen could take over the living area every night.

You can get devices that turn them off at a certain time and just get a basic TV with only Freeview access if you don't want them on Netflix or whatever.

If you do get Freeview, please make use of the parental lock (!)

Of course its different having a tv in her room to the living room as she couldn't stay up until 1am whereas she could in her bedroom!

I would say yes only if you can switch it off with a timed schedule. DC11 can use her tablet and phone in her room but they are off (with Apple screentime) from 10pm. I will let her have a TV and then cast from a tablet. She hasn't asked yet.

Only if you have no consequences to ignoring the rules, and let her have a TV with no parental controls, surely?

I've never had one in there so neither have my kids, but if they want to watch a film or a tv, it goes on in the living room.
Its nice, even if some of their choices are boring or not to my taste, I still like watching them with them, we talk about characters and stuff.

If they had a sleepover they have the living room anyway so they can use the tv

But why not? If you have already gone to watch tv in your room? You said in the OP she is too young to be in her room all the time but if she is alone in the living room it's no different.

my room is next to the living room, so there is a huge difference

I really don't understand what the difference is. If she is alone she is alone. I'm not having a go, I just don't see any difference at all. If you leave her in the living room to go to watch your TV in your room she is just as alone as she would be if she went to her room to watch TV. The location of the TV isn't relevant

Mine never watched TV everything is on their phones.
I don't like TVs in bedrooms just old fashioned

My DSD has had a tv since 5. But she doesn't have the controllers so we control how much she watches etc

My dd12 has a chrome book with netflix/Disney/Prime. We're a pretty busy household so I think all my kids should be able to retreat to their space and have their own time.

Living room is for family TV. Playroom is usually for games console so bedrooms are for their own things! Think that's fair.

My kids have had TVs in their rooms from when they were toddlers. They’re teenagers now and we’ve never had any issues.You just set boundaries, like everything else.They still spend time with us and it hasn’t impacted their schoolwork.

My dad is 8 and she has one. She uses it to watch Netflix or films. Sometimes her brother just gets too much for her and she wants some down time. We don't have space for one anywhere else. She has rules regarding when she can and cannot watch it.

I agree. Mine never stayed up all night watching TV in their room. I guess if people have DC that wouldn't self regulate then maybe it's not a good idea.

YANBU we have a no tech in bedrooms policy for everyone. No TV, no tablet, no phone. Downstairs only.

It would be a no from me — I never had a tv in my bedroom and I don’t even now! Bedrooms should be for relaxing and sleeping and reading, not watching screens. All the research on good sleep hygiene suggests watching TV or screens in bedrooms is really bad for good sleep and relaxation. In the modern world we desperately need time and spaces off from screen media, not additional sources of it in our lives.

I actually don’t know any families who do have TVs in bedrooms for any kids (but to be fair, we live in a fairly crunchy-parent knit-your-own-muesli area 😂)

IMO, and no-one on MN will like this point, in fact the thread will kick off 🤣 but it’s definitely a class thing. Generally the more middle class/outdoorsy the family, the less the likelihood of TVs in bedrooms. It definitely affects sleep, isolation from the family and academic work IMO.

Mine have had one in their bedroom for years - along with a Sky multiroom box. After a few weeks of the novelty of watching TV in bed on a morning before getting up - it wore off and it rarely gets used to be honest. DD1 will go up and lie in her bedroom reading books - but if she wants to watch bedroom TV she's obsessed with nicking our room and our big bed to watch it in there instead.

Mine are really not keen on playing in their rooms though - they're convinced they'll miss out on something and that then they'll have to tidy it up after as well - so they're always downstairs most of the time.

All our teens have a TV in their rooms. No gaming devices but they had tvs from around age 11. Now 18 and 16. Never been an issue, they love watching something upstairs and had no effect on revising for exams in winter they are a god send and during lock down too. We'd have date night they'd have movie night

I don't have a TV in my room though one downstairs is enough for me