to hate " oh we dont watch tvs - just DVDs"

[RolandButter]

its television you MORONS

I went to school with someone whose parents didn't believe in TV.

Her lack of current affairs knowledge was staggering. I asked her once (out of sheer curiosity, not aggressively) if she knew who Neil Kinnock was (this was in 1992) and she hadn't the least idea. We were 17 at the time, by no means kids...

longtalljosie this is the problem that children will have it they are not allowed TV in the home. When it comes to playground chat amongst their peers, they will be alienated because they won't know the latest cartoon characters or whatever is the latest trend. This kind of scenario reminds me of the boy in 'About a boy' the film.

That's rubbish, lovechoc.

There are ways to get information other than TV.

I know children brought up without TV and they are popular with lots od driends and interesting hobbies.

lots of friends

they must be a rare species then

I have no idea who Nick Kinnock is.

The argument that kids won't know what to talk about in the playground could be used as a reason to get a DSlight, or Xbox, or wii, or playstation, or any of the other things some kids have access to and others don't

I work in a school, kids have more to talk about in the playground funnily enough than tv. In fact it doesn't feature that highly.

Most children will have enough exposure to tv through friends and relatives to join in the occasional conversation about it, at primary level anyway.

YANBU.

Also, oh we NEVER go to McDonalds and Oh Soft Play is AWFUL! and My kids never drink ANYTHING but water and milk!

Well bloody well done YOU!

Obviously everyone can choose how they do things but 9 times out of 10 there is a great deal of smuggery attached to these pronouncements in my personal experience.

Oh and btw My dc actually never do drink ANYTHING but water and milk! .

certainly not a rare specias.

My DS is very popular. So are the kids I teach who don't have tvs.

The internet is the in thing now among kids anyway.

No. People live in a social world. You don't have to experience things directly to knowabout them. We don't have a TV, I've never seen In The Night Garden, but I know who IgglePiggle and MackaPacka are.

It's easy to pick up enough 'TV culture' to get by (if you want to). It isn't necessary for children to watch an hour a day so they can conduct critiques in the playground.

a TV is more universal, something that is affordable to most families in comparison to a games console. not quite the same thing.

I have never said there's anything wrong with watching DVDs, but I also think watching TV (IMHO ofcourse!) isn't going to cause much harm if it is on in moderation.

hear hear thesteelfairy

The fact that tv is universal doesn't make it a good thing.

We don't have to go along with the masses. It isn't compulsory. Tv keeps the masses occupied on their arses every night so the people at the top don't have to worry about revolutions.

actually that isn't true about kids being alienated

ds1 talks ten to the dozen with his friend on the way home from school, abnout ben 10
he has never seen it in his life!

in fact, i talked to his nursery manager once and she said that actually sshe has never seen it make a difference, they seem to make it up in their heads, using their imagination along with whatever the other children say about it, and they can just go along with it

his knowledge of power rangers is fairly vast too, and he's never seen that either!

OMDB! i think we may be the same person, bercause i used that sentence almost exactly, to DP the other night when we were talking about revolutions and brave new world vs 1984! lol

thisisyesterday glad someone else is on my wavelength!

And yep kids do seem to be able to just make it up as they go alone, the kids in my class are all playing this elaborate game in the playground that has been going on for weks involving captain jack sparrow and the black pearl and almost all of them have never watched Pirates of the Carribean, and I'll bet money on some of them not even knowing it all comes from a film but actually think they made it all up themselves!

And also, while 20 years ago it may have been the norm to have a tv and very cery unusual not to, in my own experieince (and this may just be a reflection of the people who live in this part of the country) it is not so unusual now not to have a tv and I'd say a quarter of the kids in my school don't have tvs or at least hardly ever watch it if they do.

GeneHuntsMistress, I would counter with my favourite TV quote (Noel Coward)

"Television is for appearing on, not looking at"

AND, those that do watch such a huge variety of different channels and programs that it isn't the same as when we were kids

you know, when i was at school it was all like "oh, did you see he-man yesterday?"

because kids tv was only one once a day for a couple of hours. but now there are so many choices that most of them probably don't even watch the same stuff as each other anyway

I definately agree about such a huge variety of TV programmes for children that is available to watch at any time of day compared to years ago. I remember there was only a few hours each afternoon after school and then no more.

We treated ourselves to sky for a xmas pressie.
I'm just loving the sky+
Watching the good stuff at a time that suits. I'm finding I don't see any rubbish now.

sky+ is tremendously marvellous.

I also see lots of rubbish though

Paisleyleaf, that's it, if there's anything worth watching we record it on the V+ and watch it when we've nothing else to do, otherwise it is off. We haven't got the tv on now as it happens.

I've just got to have a little LOL at 'no adverts on DVDs'. The only advert ds ever took any notice of was on a Disney DVD and of course he could watch the bloomin' thing over and over again!
Dd has always seen adverts on tv but she doesn't ask for things she's seen. She was able to understand at a very young age that all these things cost money and also that the purpose of adverts is to make things look good so you will buy them, they aren't necessarily going to be as much fun when you get them home.
Actually, now I come to think about it, why are people smug about the fact that they can't have a tv because they are scared of saying 'no' to their nagging children?

I agree with you, OMDB, I don't think kids need tv, just because everyone has it, after all, that is the argument everyone rubbishes when their children are after consoles/phones/pocket money.

It's just rather ridiculous to be all smug about how they dont watch TV yet to let them watch copious dvd's isn't it?

i could say that 'ooh I'm so wonderful I don't watch tv, but i'm downloading house and medium and criminal minds.."

it's just a new medium, it's not like 'not having a tv was back in the 80s! now that was properly posh

do they mean that they either get hold of programmes early by downloading them from the internet if they have aired in Amrica, or that they watch stuff they download after it's been on? Because I can understand both.

We watched the whole of the sopranos weeks after they aired the final program in the UK and that's practically all we watched for quite a while. To me that's not 'watching tv' that's watching a DVD.

so I think YABU. That's how some people 'watch TV'.

Maybe they mean 'no I didn't watch what you were watching on TV last night because I was watching something I missed on TV 3 months ago I don't really watch new TV stuff."?