Help - DD1 (5yo) is addicted to TV...

[Noomininoo]

My DD1 is 5 next week and at the moment ALL she wants to do is watch TV from the minute she wakes up to the minute she goes to bed.

She has always been difficult to entertain, demanding almost constant attention & has never really really been able to entertain herself. I try to keep her engaged as much as I can but when I've also got 2yo (very high energy) DD2 running around the place, dinner to cook, chores to do etc I can't keep her occupied all the time (nor do I want to tbh!).

Her desire to watch TV has now got to the point where she would rather be doing that than anything else. We go out on a nice day trip & she's constantly nagging to go home so she can watch the TV. Today we had a jubilee street party & all she wanted to do was go home & watch TV. She has friends over to play & all she wants to do is watch TV. She'll wake up early & go downstairs so she can get a bit in before we get up & tell her to turn it off.

I obviously do try to limit the amount she watches but the whinging & the crying & the stroppiness that ensues when I stop her watching TV is getting really difficult to handle

I really need some tips on how to get my DD1 away from the TV & entertaining herself.

Help!!

I wouldn't have any trouble simply switching it off and saying 'have a tantrum'. I was giving advice to someone who seems bothered about it.

I wasn't picking on your advice exoticfruits, you are not the only poster who suggested this. I was just giving my own thoughts on that as a stratorgie i wasnt meaning to come across as argumentative I just dont think its the best way forward.

I agree that it has its failings if OP lets it slide again. Maybe forget that part-just sit her down each day with the TV guide and let her pick 2 programmes and then close your mind to tantrums and moaning.

Wow - I've never had so many responses to a post .

I'm inclined to agree with dangerous. I wouldn't feel happy about telling DD1 the TV was broken as I too think she's of an age where she should understand why she shouldn't watch so much TV (also I don't particularly want to go a week without any TV in the evenings when DC are in bed either .

DD1 does already understand this concept as we've explained before why she can only have chocolate & takeaways (McDonalds) as an occasional treat because they are not healthy and (by & large) she accepts this. It doesn't stop her asking for them but she does accept it when I say no.

The problem I have is not so much her having a paddy when the TV is turned off, that I think I can handle, but more how she generally behaves when the TV is off. She's constantly miserable or nagging me to do this or that with her. She need to be constantly entertained & is seemingly incapable of entertaining herself.

I work full time & also have a 2yo DD2 to look after so I don't always have the time (or energy) to be her constant plaything.

I think next weekend (when DH is around to help) we'll have a TV free weekend with a little chat about how watching too much TV is not good for you followed by a strict quota'd system thereafter.

Wish me luck

I would never tell her it was broken-I would be truthful as to why it was switched off.

Is the TV the problem or is the TV the solution to a problem?

My DD2 has Asperger's. Just to be clear I am not suggesting that you DD has it.

She finds quite a lot of things in our everyday life challenging. Her sensory processing difficulties and her inability to filter out unimportant details mean that she is constantly battling to maintain her focus and to cope with unwelcome sensations. This non-stop input exhausts her and she has different ways to deal with it. She runs away, hides under things and in things to reduce the stimulus. Her very best strategy is to watch TV.

When she watches a screen the intensity of the input from the sound and vision are strong enough to allow her to filter out the rest of the world. No longer does she have to struggle to concentrate. It is a great relief to her and she would use a screen all day every day if she were allowed.

If your DD is so desperate to watch TV that she's begging to come home on days out could it be that she's using it to escape from something she struggles with? Lots of children are hypersensitive to sensory stimuli. Could it be that she wants to get away from overpowering smells, sounds, people touching her?

Could it be that she is feeling insecure for some unrelated reason and the predictability of the TV schedule is what she needs to ground herself and feel more in control?

I just wonder if this is the case and you ban the one thing which gives her a break from something she finds hard you might find that she become anxious and irritable.

A different approach could be to help her plan her TV time in advance and write it on a little whiteboard placed near the TV. That way you both agree what she will watch and when and she will know when it is going to happen. Knowing that it is going to happen at a certain time might help her to be a bit less obsessed about it which in turn might stop her asking for it to be switched on so much.

If she does keep asking you can just keep showing her the whiteboard and a clock, tell her how long she needs to wait and reassure her that you will make sure she gets to watch at the allotted time.

I think once you've broken the TV cycle, you may find that she gets better and better at entertaining herself once the initial detoxing has taken place.

I have been lucky with DS: I haven't had to impose rules as he is generally v. good about TV. When he asks if he can watch at the weekend, I get him to look in the paper and choose the programme he wants to watch so he appreciates that it just doesn't go on for random crap. We also have a good DVD collection, so he will watch one episode of something (so there is a fixed switching off moment, iyswim). We also record decent quality programmes onto the hard drive (at the moment we have Deadly 60 on there) to use in a similar way to the DVDs.

By not having prescribed limits, we can be flexible - today it has been on all afternoon because we have been watching the French Open and he gets that it is all about balance - other weekends we might not have it on at all during the day because we are busy doing other stuff.

Never TV in the morning before school though.

With less TV time she won't know immediately how to fill her time as she has been used to being entertained a lot by TV IYKWIM, it will take a while for creativity kick in, but it should do given the space to do so.

Hmmmm I would have to say that I would take the hardline and remove the TV initially. She will have melt downs and tantrums but eventually she will find other ways to entertain herself. We used to have the TV on all the time before we had DS. It was put on as soon as we woke up and was back ground noise all day. Now, it is rarely on, especially when DS is awake, and we have only 1 TV, in our sitting room, whereas we used to have 3 or 4 around the house. This is a real effort for me as I love watching rubbish on Sky! DS is 19 months and all his friends love the TV but he really isn't interested. I once put it on on a particularly trying day to distract him and he didn't watch it. Your DD needs to be weaned off it and find ways to become more creative before reintroducing it again in smaller measures. I was once on a course and heard Sue Palmer lecturing about Toxic Childhood (google it!) and found it really interesting, especially as her research is so thorough. It does make for very informative reading I think.

I hope you can withstand the tantrums that will come! My mum never let us watch much TV, we had tantrums, and now I'm doing the same with my DS! It will be worth it in the end I hope! However, it really is up to you to pick your battles, but as an infant teacher I am always aware of the children in my class who do nothing but watch screens when out of school. I'm not saying no screen time at all, but reintroducing it in smaller doses would be worth a try :)