To not understand why children need a TV in their room?

[mrsruffallo]

Following on from another thread-I am quite surprised how many kids have a TV in their bedrooms.
Surely they can read to go to sleep?
Or watch the one in the living room?
Come and enlighten me, why do children need their own one?

grump... x posts me dear

No child needs a tv in their room, though I'm pretty sure most of them would like one.

Surely it depends on the age and maturity of the child as to whether they have a TV in their room.

Once they are able to make sensible decisions about what and how much TV they watch they should be allowed one.

If it causes obesity maybe I should buy extra to stop my boys being so damned skinny?

(I, I admit, am obese though losing it steadily which IMO is what counts.)

Sink estate? Much like ExPats it sounds LOL, we do ahve a museum though right behind the house which the noys know by heart, and the amphitheatre / Roman Barracks all within 5 minutes jog.

TBH when we're not camping / walking / doing therapies / reading / exploring the area pursuing hobbies well I think tv is fine. And all those years dh worked nights and I was stuck in alone it pretty mich saved my sanity

Ruby... You're right what a big old waste of money those fools at the national Literacy trust have put into research. What's the point of any research really? After all there are exceptions and so we should forget the usefulness of any research.

I'm sure most people whose dcs have a TV in their room are academics and their children go on to be olympians, there's no research to suggest it but there must be one family out there.

Surely it's no great leap to think that uneducated people do choose the TV as their main entertainment? They're not the only people to watch it but probably watch it more than people who can afford to do other things and see the value in other 'free' activities like visiting a museum.

pretty much everyone I know in RL watches a fair bit of TV, from poor uneducated types

We have a tv in our room and DD1 has one in her room, she has a story everynight, could talk from an early age, she is out playing most days if we are not doing anything as a family and she is a bright and clever girl, she has had a tv since an early age she likes going to bed as she likes watching it for a bit before she sleeps. I dont see that this is a problem for my DD.

haha I just read page one and posted then read all these people defending themselves posts lol

Most people on this thread have very clearly said that they don't fall into the stereotype that the research suggests. I do have a 'eeewww' response when I hear about children having TVs in their rooms and it does conjure up images of dcs shut away watching endless TV. I'll bet that there's lots of people I spend time with who have a 'middle class' TV tucked away for 'good' use in their dcs bedrooms.

I'm not saying that all TV is bad or trying to offend but I am responding to an earlier post and then many others that have claimed that it cannot possibly be true that TV activity has trends based on class/education.

There are not there's
[must stop watching TV emoticon]

Oh I've got an unsociable ds without a TV in his room! But unfortunately he's not fat or stupid, so might not defy the profile in a helpful way.

I think my dc watch quite a lot of telly, and they do other stuff too. I'd worry about having more screens than the one TV we have downstairs, because I think it'd up the 'screen' time we already have. And while they are looking at screens, they are not doing something else. I think TV is great, I like watching it with them - I don't think it's THAT great though.

Probably I'm with balloonslayer, if my ds had it in his room I think he's spin off into a vortex of screen fixation. The other two dc would not. I don't think he'd moderate it as well as all these other children who are also SAT stars and keen sports people and wildly sociable. I think he'd never come out of his room again.

Does anyone know if there is actually any evidence of television in bedrooms leading to poorer family life?

My dcs (6 and 4) don't have them, have never asked for them and I hope they never will. They don't have play stations or watch DVDs much either - not really as a point of principle, it is just the way things turned out. They read a lot and play imaginative games.

Sadly, my son has poor social skills and often does not interact well with his peers. Dh and I sometimes get fed up of interacting with the kids and are snappy at them as a result. Perhaps I should encourage them to watch more television!

Goosey, there are lots. National Literacy Trust being one.

Thanks posie - does that show that it affects literacy levels or family/social development as well?

I've got 4 children who range from 16 down to 4 -all of whom like to read, go to clubs , chat, do sports, chat some more etc etc ( as loads of posters have said before!!)

The 16 year old has never been that into telly or games but the 14 sometimes likes to watch films, or play on his playstation , particularly when he has friedns over and whats suitable for 14 year olds usually isnt at all suitable for my 4 year old!

Actually the more I think about it, the more this thread sounds increasingly like everyone thinks it's the perfect solution to a problem - we don't all want to watch the same thing, let's buy another TV, let's have one each.

I don't get that. Tell them 'no' bad luck, you don't get to watch what you want all the time. Other people live in this house - there has to be a compromise. The adults have to compromise too.

It's weird. All this satisfying of individual desires by buying MORE and MORE of the same thing.

'it does not depend on:
what class you are'

Here's an extract from a recent survey:

'72% of working-class children have a TV in their bedroom compared with only 54% for the middle classes.'

Oh, and here's the link:

www.psych.lse.ac.uk/young_people/press.html

Gosh, I went away for a while to watch Wimbledon go shopping and feed and change DD3 and it's still the same arguments.

I am not denying that there are some kids who spend way too much time watching TV/playing Grand Theft Auto/scamming people on Ebay in their rooms.

Having a TV in their bedroom does not automatically mean that children become hollow-eyed degenerates.

And I was terribly smug about DD1 earlier, but she is brilliant.

abraid. Lovely stats... but nowhere does it say how much time is spent actually watching it... EG All of the 54% may watch masses of tv alone in their bedroom where as half of the 75% may watch a large amount.

The stats mean zero in my book. Ds can go for days without turning it on... So he is one of the 74% but the 54% may have it on every night.

Grumpy... I thought you had deserted us, wouldn't blame you mind, it's just the same old same old nonsense.

Tell them 'no' bad luck, you don't get to watch what you want all the time. Other people live in this house - there has to be a compromise. The adults have to compromise too.

Yeah, I rememeber 'compromise' from when I was a kid. I bet it hasn't changed much since.

We'd be watching something that we waited all week for and my dad would come in, turn it over 'just to see what's on' stand there for 5 mins then walk away.