Toddlers and TV

[spacegirl81]

How much TV do your DCs watch and what time of the day? How old are they and does it effect their behaviour?

The reason is that you can suddenly realise you have been talking to your child for three days/doing activities/going for walks, but haven't heard another adult voice in that time. The early days of babble and raspberries are gorgeous, but can be very lonely.

DS2 is 18 months and tends to watch 1 "in the night garden" while I shower and dress in the morning, so DH and DS1 can sleep in (I get up at 6). If he and DS1 (3) are good, DH puts on one episode of Alphablocks or Octonauts after breakfast and our nanny put on another one of those two around 6, while she prepares their supper. Occasionally one further episode of something in my own language while I cook our supper. So overall about 1 hour for DS2 and 45 mins for DS1. More than I would like, esp for DS2, but it seems to be the price of DH's sanity now that I have such early starts.

ChrisBenedict I hope you teach your kids a bit more about causation and correlation. None of your things have ever been shown to be caused by TV in any of the studies.

dd2 (just 3) watches milkshake when she gets up while I get ready for work and sort out breakfast - maybe 30-45mins?

then in the afternoon she'll watch cbeebies while she comes round from her nap, usually 2 programmes so 20-30mins I guess.

sometimes dd1 will put a DVD on at the weekend, and dd2 will occasionally watch bits, but she doesn't have the concentration for a whole film yet.

she likes TV - no more or less than other stuff. no tantrums if we don;t have it. I will admit that I do like the electronic babysitter aspect of it on work mornings.

what studies? The last I read was that in fact there is no evidence to suggest television is detrimental to children.

Of course I talk to DD - not all day though. Quite often she is bumbling about doing her own thing, in which case I might stick the radio on, rather than cook/wash up/clean in silence. We go out, we read, we play together. But sometimes we're tired and fancy a sit down. There's nothing wrong with a lot of TV or films, some are wonderful in fact.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with DD's speech, in fact at 3 she sounded like a 5/6 year old.

Everything in moderation. If your child is up and about for 12 hours, a couple spent watching something interesting on TV is hardly the end of the world - and might actually be educational!