WIBU to not allow popular kids characters/music in the house?

[Elilanna]

No kids yet, but I'm hoping to have them in the near-ish future, work in the early childhood sector and have a young niece and nephew so I'm quite aware of what's popular with the little ones these days, but I'm personally not a fan and would rather not expose my own children to any of that media, at least not when they're very small - but I've heard a lot of criticism of this approach, that "only crunchy hippie mums do that!" and "it's part of our culture, you're depriving them of an important part of childhood!" Specifically I'd be avoiding Disney, Cocomelon, and the Wiggles, and even things I don't mind wouldn't be on baby's clothes & other belongings as I don't believe in turning your child into free advertising for a popular brand. I'm otherwise not very "hippie" or "crunchy", this is just the one thing where I'd like to limit their exposure.

So... tell me I'm not the only one who wants to do this?

There's a great bit in one of the Nick Hornby books, about some character who wasn't allowed to watch tv when he was a kid.

The point made is that they didn't become a visionary poet or anything, just solicitor/accountant like everyone else. But they missed out on a lot of peer to peer interaction in their youth.

I vowed at that point never to be that parent.

I feel your position is very misguided anyway. Kids get so much out of storytelling and the more commercial stuff isn't necessarily worse. Disney has contributed hugely to the cultural landscape, I've no idea why you'd want to ban that.

Anyway, thanks for sharing, let us know how it goes 😉

Also, banning 'characters' is a bit odd. Are you going to ban The Gruffalo, Miffy, Maisie, The Tiger who came to tea?

Or just the ones on TV?

What happens if they are subsequently put on tv?

Bye bye Charlie & Lola?

I've only banned the ones I find annoying 😂We don't do character themed clothes but that's mainly because we like vintage style clothes so we don't own anything like that either.

I will confess, my son's toys are about 95% wooden 😅The only bits of plastic he has were surprise gifts (normally people ask what we'd like before buying things).

To be fair, Charlie and Lola do need to fuck off. But I'll let it happen organically.

Best parenting advice I've ever read on here.

I will confess, my son's toys are about 95% wooden 😅The only bits of plastic he has were surprise gifts (normally people ask what we'd like before buying things).

How old is your child? Plastic can be amazing doesn't he want lego, duplo playmobil or bath toys?

DS2 goes to a classic Montessori school where they spend a lot of time pissing about with wooden blocks in true Montessori fashion.

But when they're outside, they're running around pretending to be the paw patrol pups and enacting rescue missions.

He's getting loads out of both those things. 🤷‍♀️

Lego/Duplo are the best toys in the world. Good quality plastic is a fantastic material for children's toys and will be passed on and on. We've 30 year old duplo in our house still going strong.

Agreed! Also so much more sustainable than buying new wooden stuff.

Ps the description of your son reminded me of the terriers from Bluey.

He's 20 months. He plays with plastic at his childminders, it's not like I ban him from touching it, there's just a limited quantity at home because I personally don't want to buy it :) He has loads of building blocks.

He has showers rather than baths as he is one of those toddlers who refuses to sit in the water 😂

The American comments have made me realise my children never hear people who sound like them on TV - we're in NI, and identify as Irish.

Check out Puffin Rock on Netflix, it's gorgeous.

Holy moly. How do you keep her distracted while you wash up, do laundry etc? I remember DD being partial to those YouTube videos with brightly coloured shapes when she was about 6 weeks old… 😬

Ps the description of your son reminded me of the terriers from Bluey.

🤣

I want to know where the family from Cocomelon live. It’s gorgeous! Tropical beach, massive parks, and a preschool with six kids and the most dedicated teacher of all time. Plus the massive houses with pools that they can afford despite neither parent working and their only activities seeming to involve singing songs about shitting or making pizza.

As soon as they start school then you will have zero control over what they experience/discuss. I say this as someone with no children but can remember crystal clear all the weird things that went around the playground!

It also reminds me of a friend I had who was lovely but parents were Jehovah's witness. She used to watch Eastenders and other shows at a friend's house! I only went to her house once to see her pet rabbits but remember how weird I found her Mother. Refused all other invitations.

I think there's nothing wrong thinking about the future and wondering what kind of parent you would like to be. There's a lot of snobbery on this thread. We didn't all just make up parenting rules the minute our children were born.

It's a bit like child birth. You are asked to think about the options but keep an open mind. A lot depends on specific situations and your specific child.

There's nothing wrong with not allowing certain shows or certain merchandise but you might find that it comes in handy. DD was definitely more willing to wear clothes, drink and eat out of dishes, etc which had her favourite characters on them.

Also, they kind of grow on you. After having watched about a billion episodes of Peppa pig when DD was younger I really miss them now that she watches other crap.

My older child is now in the throes of Pokémon and Bakugan so i look back very fondly on Peppa Pig. It's a lot better than what comes after.

I felt the same before having children. The thing is they get a lot of enjoyment out of these popular TV programmes and they do no harm if mixed in with all other activities. If your child decides they love winne the pooh, you wouldn't be buying a winne the pooh t-shirt thinking you're adverse for Disney, more that your child will love it. I personally not buy Disney etc. merchandise for my kids to wear as I don't generally think they are my taste of clothes but we have lots of Disney etc PJs and nighties to make up for it. Win-win.

Why? I'd just like to know why. What do you think the benefits will be?

Why not just go full-on Amish?

Thinking about it, I've kind of followed your ideas, @Elilanna, without explicitly setting out to do so. We don't have a TV, and very rarely watch Netflix (yes, we have Netflix, we're not living in a cave), so we don't put shows/music on in the background unless specifically wanting to dance to a song etc. And as for the clothes, they don't happen to have characters on either.

HOWEVER (a BIG however!!), I have JUST one 14m old and am lucky enough to be a SAHM at the moment. But if I had several kids AND had to work FT (and, you know, life admin), I'm sure my ways would change.

As PPs have said..... you do what you gotta do to get through (ask me in 3 years time!).

My DD is 19 months and does watch some TV but only via iPlayer so I can choose what she watches, and tend to choose stuff I can tolerate (Bluey, Bing, Postman Pat, Something Special, Maddie's Do You Know, Grace's Amazing Machines). There's plenty of good children's TV out there. I'm not a big fan of Peppa Pig or Cocomelon etc so haven't shown her any, but I'm sure the time will come when she comes across it and am under no illusion that I'll be able to control what she watches forever. Also not a massive fan of cartoon characters on clothing or branded toys but again aware that I might have to be flexible on that in the future. It's all a journey!

Allowing my dc to watch things like Peppa Pig and Ben & Holly and the rest of it helped foster a love of reading because they'd watch the programme and I would buy the related book and magazines and we'd read them together. It also encouraged my dc to play a whole range of imaginative games based on what they'd watched. They also learned so much; for example, there's an episode of B&H where they visit a windmill and find out how it works; when we later went to Fountains Abbey and saw the grind stone they could link it back to that.

Not the person you replied to, but we waited until two and a few months old to introduce screens.

When I washed up he was either laid on the floor or in a bouncer as a baby (for brief periods of time, awake, obviously). He was usually happy enough rolling around or looking around the room when he was tiny. Once he was a toddler he would potter around while I did jobs. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't clean the whole house or anything but things like laundry and washing up weren't an issue. Or I'd do them while he napped or after bedtime. We never set out to wait until over two to introduce screens but it just felt right so we kept going with it.

If you're not able to don't sweat it. Every family is different. The WHO recommend over two before introducing TV and then up to one hour of quality kids' programming per day max, but most people I know introduced screens before that and especially during the pandemic much more than recommended.

It takes quite a lot of privilege to be able to do screen free I think personally.

I have low standards for housework maybe?

When she was younger, I used to do a lot of stuff with her in a sling.

Generally, if I'm doing laundry or cleaning she'll come with me and "help". The quality of the help varies. Her idea of cleaning a window is to grab a cleaning cloth, lick the window enthusiastically and then wipe it with the cloth shouting "Clean! Clean!" But she'll actually help me do things like unloading the washing machine.

Washing up and cleaning after meals, she goes in a playpen (with some special toys that she likes that only get played with in the playpen, so she's happy) while I do that. We have a dishwasher so it doesn't take long - generally about 10 minutes and DH does the longest one, after dinner, while I'm getting DD ready for bed.

Preparing meals, either she bustles around in the dining part of the kitchen-diner, doing her own thing, or sometimes she sits up in her high chair and does some drawing at the table while I chop veg or whatever.

I'm aware this might sound smug. I don't mean it to. I think DD is a fairly easy toddler, and if she wasn't I'd probably use a screen to get stuff done. I just genuinely haven't yet needed to. I don't have a deep objection to screens, if I'm honest the fact that she doesn't use one is as much laziness on my part as anything else - I've seen some friends where they're constantly having to police when/ what/ how much time is being spent on a screen, and I'd rather not do that before I absolutely have to!

And all that said, child number 2 is arriving next week (planned induction so I know the date). So give me a month and DD will probably have watched every episode of Peppa Pig that exists...