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?

Vinny, you will have to get a copy of the Echo tonight for my email to make sense...then again, it will probably be on Granada Reports if you can't bear to read

Don't be so ridiculous, why would it be out of date have class distinctions and values changed enormously, no I think not.

None of us have got televisions in our rooms. Sometimes I think I'd like one so I can go to bed and watch television rather than falling asleep on the sofa.

The thing that concerns me is not being able to explain or give context to things that they're watching if they're upstairs in their rooms watching TV alone.

For example, DS loves watching Top Gear which is on pre-watershed. Last night they had a piece with Stephen Fry in which he described an app on his iPhone called Grinder which you could use to identify "cruising homosexuals" in the vicinity. As it was, DS wasn't watching it, but if he had been, I could have answered any questions etc. I know you can level the same criticism at book-reading but it's easier to keep an eye on them reading one book over a number of days as opposed to many different programmes on one evening.

Our television is only switched on once a day to view the news (BBC of course) followed by Newsnight.

The DCs are welcome to share our viewing but prefer the "dumbed down" approach, entertaining each other by performing Shakespeare plays through the medium of organic cotton finger puppets. The theatre itself was fashioned from a redundant Abel and Cole box. DD (7) is just beginning to sew another set of curtains for it as she feels that the comedies do require a different colour palette to the tragedies in order for their qualities to be enjoyed to the full.

Of course they have to have a T.V in their room. No adult should be made to watch iCarly [shivers]It's inhumane.

LOL Balloon!

Plus also I would really like to be watching the news with them - children can watch things and be quite upset/worried about them. It's fine if you've got the kind of child who'll come straight to you and ask about it, but a lot of children wouldn't.

PP 1991 is nearly 11 years ago your not serious.... Watch MTV cribs see how them rich people watch TV in the bath whilst there having a wee!!!!

My Friend is quite rich he has a TV in every room in his 8 Bedroom house including his GYM his 3 year old has a bigger TV than me in her bedroom and she can switch it on herself using the remote loool

Please not all poor people watch TV they can't afford the TV licence

I also was a deprevied child I think I was allowed to watch 20mins of TV on a evening even in the winter no TV in bedroom now I love TV I could list you what I watch on a daily basis.... So maybe not letting children watch TV is worse for them when they get to adulthood!!!!

'That's not to say less well off people are thick, uneducated and unimaginative it's just more likely that they will watch TV.'

Yes, because all TV fans are thick, uneducated and unimaginative.

LOL at all these 'we don't have a TV' ponces and then if you look at their name they spend hours and hours on MN alone.

Expat, I was responding to a post.

MN activity is not subjecting children to TV is it?

PP, 1991 is not 11 years ago

2004 National Literacy trust says the same thing.

When I was little I didn't have a tv in my room. When I was little and ill I was allowed to bring my duvet onto the sofa and watch tv.

I do this with ds and he thinks it's great.

If we had a tv in his room we wouldn't be aable to do that

BalloonSlayer if you're ever in Bournemouth, can I buy you a coffee?

There is quite a sinister undercurrent to some of these posts - that parents who allow their kids to watch TV in their bedrooms are lazy/bad parents. To my shame, I used to believe this too, until I had a chat with a mum at my son's school. She is a single parent, works part-time, and lives in a flat with her DS (a very lively aged 5) with no garden. She has no family living nearby to help her, and the exP is not a part of their lives. She allows - gasp - the 5-year-old to have a TV in his bedroom. If she didn't, she would probably go insane. Can anyone honestly say that they wouldn't do the same thing if they were in her situation? Honestly?

My kids don't have TV in their bedrooms, as they have no need for them - but they do have a shared TV in the playroom and I think they benefit greatly from this. And, re. some of the above posts, my DH and I are privately-educated, have Honours degrees and we are certainly not "poor" so we don't fit the absolutely dreadful stereotype that some of you are peddling. I can see why you are, but please please don't generalise so much - there are always exceptions to everything.

'MN activity is not subjecting children to TV is it?'

But it's hardly reading and talking to your children, either.

weebob is right, there's this idea that TV is all bad and children shouldn't be subjected to things like TV.

MummyDragon - but please please don't generalise - thank you, you have hit the nail on the head there...

Well mine don't have a TV in their rooms, they ahd DVD's but they trashed them.
DS3 has a PSP with 2 films available.

Neither do we: just wouldn't use it.

However....... I may let ds1 have one after he turns ten. He does read- reading age has doubled 5 years in past year with the literacy scheme they are now using- but due to his ASD he sleeps very poorly so we may let hi9m have one with appropriate child controls. As its either that or nightkly meltdowns/ trashed bedrooms / da,aged siblings it's worth it I think- heck if it works DH and I might get our first hour off since November 2007 LOL! gotta be worth it!

Noone is saying that all TV is bad, most people are explaining their reasons behind hating the idea of a TV in their children's bedroom.

Perhaps when people are on MN their dcs are reading alone and playing together???

I think most people assume, wrongly, that TV in a bedroom is to shut children away, make bed time easy, let the whole family enjoy a range of programs at the same time??? The only people I know whose dcs have TVs in theri bedrooms watch an awful lot of TV, dcs watch inappropriate programs aimed at older children and watch TV way past, what I would consider, an appropriate time.

When I spend a long summer at my parents (which on a good day is as cool as 32degrees) my dcs have a TV in their rooms as their lounge area has crap AC and my parents like a little peace and quiet in the main lounge.

As Dh is off work ATM when I am on MN either the boys are at school and ds4 asleep, or DH is playing with them. Or they are watching TV. A little is fine IMO.

Oh and when we did that tanya Byron thing back along, she admitted to using the TV sometimes for her child whilst she worked (was part of the study group thing)- som moderation is fine IMVHO

posieparker - The only people I know whose dcs have TVs in theri bedrooms watch an awful lot of TV, dcs watch inappropriate programs aimed at older children and watch TV way past, what I would consider, an appropriate time.

You don't know me, so don't assume and generalise.

FFS, I am writing ENGLISH right?
I said the only people I know.