to be pleased that my DDs don't know the words to the Bob the Builder song?

[Riponite]

Am I being mean at nearly 3 and 5 that they haven't seen any of the TV programmes their friends watch? I love not having a telly and am secretly very smug about it too, but is there an age where they will start feeling left out and ought to know who Peppa Pig is?

I think any misgivings you have concerning being mean towards your DC have to be considered alongside your willingness to forgo your feelings of smugness? This may be difficult to do.

My DS watches TV. He is 3 and a half. He doesnt know the words to Bob The Builder. Infact I dont think he has ever watched an episode of Bob The Builder.

Yet bizarrely enough I know the words...

YANBU

Please read! It's the same story, repeated three times. I just posted the BBC version, the Telegraph and the Guardian as I am aware that some people immediately dismiss anything printed by left-wing or right-wing papers.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8654963.stm

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/7672586/Children-who-watch-television-more-likely-to-be- bullied.html

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/besttreatments/2010/may/05/does-too-much-tv-for-toddlers-mean-troubl e-later-on

Oh another thing...

I had better stop reading to DS daily, better let him watch TV all day, and had better stop feeding him healthy home-made meals because some MN bullies might think I am being "smug".

God damn anyone who tries to do their best for their kids.

But the OP describes her pleasure in being smug about the absence of a tv in her house, how is she being bullied?

Reading a book, newspaper, whatever, and TV viewing are not mutually exclusive activities. To think in such black and white terms is more worrying IMO and to pass on such a trait to your child is going to do more damage to their intellectual capacity than any ban on TV will do to help it.

WHY are you paying for a licence fee if you don't watch telly?

It's irrelevant whether you own 'receiving equipment', it's about whether you actually use it. We just used iplayer for a while (no licence fee needed)...

Snobear, you do know that you can let your child watch a small amount of tv AND also read to them, feed them healthy meals etc?

The OP posted in AIBU and if you've been here for longer than a few days you should know that by doing so she was inviting comments like these.

YABdefinitelyU - the Bob the Builder song is FAB - and I speak as a non-tv-owner (then) whose dd used to sing at full volume "Can we fix it? NO WE CAN'T"

But to answer your question, I don't think that there is the same feeling of exclusion as there used to be.

We do now have a tv, but dd - now age 8 - uses it really only to play computer games (geeky family alert), and never manages to actually want to watch things enough to be in the room at the time they are on. I think there are just too many channels/options for one thing to be the subject of playground discussion in the way that it used to be.

Oh not another "I'm so clever and smug because I don't have a telly" thread. [yawn]

Television is just a MEDIUM. It's like being smug because you don't have books or newspapers in your house. Grow up.

Yes Surprise, but "CAN YOU FIX HER?"

NO YOU CAN'T!!

Because she doesn't know what you are talking about.....

My Ds often says did you know......? I say no did you learn that at school? The answer 'no from nina and the neurons!! Love C beebies!

My parents didn't have a TV in their house until I was 13. This was back in the days when there was only around 2 hours of children's TV on anyway and it was all black and white!

I was something of a social misfit because I had no idea what the other children were talking about. I couldn't talk about the Osmonds, or Bagpuss, or Blue Peter because I never saw them. It's not always the best thing to exclude your children from, tbh, fairly innocuous viewing because it makes you feel a 'better' parent to do so.

I didn't even know my dd had seen or heard Bob the Builder until we went to B & Q and she burst into the song at the sight of the power tools! T'was very cute.
You're being more unnecessary than unreasonable IMHO.

riponite mine dont watch tv and have got to teenage years happy healthy and well liked!

lucky you that school

My DD doesn't know the words to either Peppa or Bob the Builder. But, at four, she knows the words to Alexandra Burkes "Bad Boys".
I'm not sure what I'd prefer