Todays tip of the day

[anais]

"42% of three year olds in the UK have a TV in their bedroom. "

Discuss...

Mine does, Grandad bought it for her birthday and while it makes me feel guilty it makes my life easier at times. She is only allowed it on when we say so and so far has honoured that rule.

3 year olds? why?

Although my DD is now 4

My attitude is 'so what?' - my dd is only 15 months and doesn't have a tv in her room yet, and I don't plan on one soon...however, who am I to judge.... Maybe parents of three year olds find it useful on weekend mornings when they want a lie in, and encourage their 3 year old to tune in to cbeebies for half hour an hour to buy an extra 30 mins in bed. Where's the harm in that...

maybe handlecarefully but mine still wouldn't let me have a lie in...

I was horrified. Also from the same survey "50% have CD player. And the average toddler spends almost 5 hours a day playing on computer or watching TV.

But when asked to name their favourite toy and activity, their answers - a cuddly toy and a trip to the lacal park or to grandma's - showed that some things never change."

i wouldn't get my dd one as i dont have one and have never liked t.v,s in bedrooms.i like peace and quiet to read,,,,,,,,,,each to thier own though! (we were away for the weekend though and in a hotel room with t.v and had a lie in with dd watching noddy.well an extra ten minutes anyway!)

My 5 yo dd has a telly and video in her bedroom. The only reason I got one is because I found it impossible to get my eldest 2 to go to bed. They now go up and watch a video to wind down before they go to sleep. If that's outrageous, I don't really care. It was a telly or my sanity.

None of mine have TVs/videos in their bedrooms (they are 4, 6 and 8) - I personally don't like TVs in bedrooms (not even in our bedroom!).

8yo has a CD player in her room. They all have stacks and stacks of books - 8yo likes to read in bed as it relaxes her. If the 4yo wakes early, she either reads her books/does some colouring/drawing (other 2 usually have to be dragged from their beds ).

I couldn't believe the figure was 42% of toddlers - I think it's really sad (Also, my lot get sent to their bedrooms if they are misbehaving - not much of a punishment if they've got TV/video/DVD players to amuse them!!)

I don't have a TV in our bedroom precisely because I don't want to be a hypocrite in a few years time when ds wants one in his room. Maybe if we had Cbeebies in NZ I would feel differently. We have advertising on every channel and whilst I used to work in the industry (or perhaps because) I don't want that in my child's bedroom.

This is weird, I dont know any children with TVs in their rooms, certainly not 3 year olds. Why cant they just watch in living room, or wherever the TV is? Do families all end up watching different progs in different parts of the house? There's five of us in this house and we do occasionally have disagreements about what to watch but I just think thats part of sharing a living space. Compromise, discussion...?

My 17 yo DD has a TV & video in her room but the rest of us don't. I wouldn't give a toddler a TV... Then again I also wouldn't let a toddler use a PC & was shouted down on a previous thread for saying so.. (but 14 yo DS spends almost 100% of time on games console )

We possess only 1 tv and its in the lounge. Many of my pals have tvs in their bedrooms and their kids rooms. One pal even had one in every room of the house except bathroom. My sis owns a quality bathroom business and she has offered me a plasma screen for our bathroom which she obtained from a rep!!!! I think she feels sorry for us!!!!

Ds1 and2 (10/6) have a tv/video in one of their rooms but its not tuned in so they can only watch videos, which like Angiels children, they do after bath and b4 bed. Agree in our case its a sanity preserver so I can start story/bed with DD (4). DD would love a tv but only a pink one so no problem there!

I find this truly shocking and sickening. Did anyone see that thing on channel 4 a couple of weeks or so back, called lock up your sons, or something? For those of you who didn't it was about a craze from america, called Back yard wrestling, which is coming over here. It involves kids wrestling with weapons, such as tube lights, barbed wire, drawing pins, and knives, etc. It was on around 11pm. The following day I walked down to our local shops and there were a group of kids - probably aged around 10, where recreating scenes from the programme.

It quite upset me. Having a tv in a kids room, you have no control over what they are watching, and allowing a child as young as 3 to choose their own viewing, I think is totally irresponsible. Ditto the other statistics which KS posted.

My children rarely watch TV at all - I am quite concerned about the content of a lot of kids tv shows, not to mention the adverts and trailers etc shown at the same time.

I think this is a real cop-out - lazy, irresponsible parenting, and who knows what your kids are picking up???? My god, is it any wonder our society is in such a mess?

I do the same thing and its not tuned in so she can only watch what I decide she can watch on video - hers was bought as a gift and when she watches a video we usually watch together or I get on with seeing to DS (8wks) while she watches. We dont have a video downstairs so if she has a video to watch it takes place on the TV/Video in her room. I dont see how this is irresponsible as it is monitored and controlled by me and she has no say in what is on or when its on and certainly cant browse through televisions and be exposed to adverts.

Do you have the same thoughts about videos or is it just tv?

I also find this unbelievable. Why would a 3 yo have a tv in their bedroom? We don't even have one in ours. I really don't see why the 3yo can't get out of bed and go downstairs and watch the one in the living room.

Actually I've just remembered we DO have one in ours, put it in when we were having building work done downstairs but have never turned it on! I like reading, sleeping and sh*gging in my bedroom!

We don't have a tv in our bedroom - I get little enough sleep as it is. Ds2 had a tv in his room when he was chronically ill and spent a lot of time in bed and 16yr old dd1 has just nicked her bro's tv for her room, but as it's covered with a sarong, I don't think she watches it much!!

I'd never put a tv in a small child's bedroom, it just seems unnecessary. Dh and I watch the news and I'll look at Neighbours & Doctors when I'm ironing but I find most tv incredibly banal.

absolutely no way my ds is going to have a tv in his room at such a young age.(2yrs)
He does however have a cd player. this is so I can put a cd of lullabies/sleepy music on at night to help him calm down & go to sleep.
It never goes on except for the lenght of 1 cd at night.

Anyway - it's too high up for him to reach! & I really don't think he would want it onall the time just yet!
But it is my saviour - we no longer have to sit in the room wit him till he falls asleep. It seems to be the only thing that would work

My friend's ds who is 3 has a stack of computer games such as Bob the Builder and so on. He'd much rather play with them than go outside and play.
A while back my sister-in-law gave me some videos, mainly Disney, for dd who's 3, I gave them all to charity. I find it disturbing when I go into someone's house with small children to find they have a whole bookcase full of videos for the kids! My dd sometimes goes to her friends to play, and their mum will put a video on for them. Now when her kids come round I wouldn't dream of doing that! I would play with them and encourage them to play together, otherwise what's the point of having friends round if you're just going to stick a video on for them?

This might sound strict, but I would never allow dd to have a tv in her room, I never had one and I don't think it's necessary. I wouldn't even get more than one tv, I think it's overrated as it is. She has a sing-a-long cassette player, but I wouldn't consider a CD player until she was much older. And she is not allowed on the pc at all, I would never allow her to have an email address. The only time she would have access to the pc is to do homework with one of us around.

It's sad that so many children are cooped up at home with videos and pc games at such an early age. Where I live they still allow their children to play out on the street, and all the kids have a lot of streetsense, which is much more valuable than the ability to use a keyboard!

What's the difference between a CD player and a cassette deck - isn't it more likely they'll trash the cassettes? DH refuses to have a cassette player in the house, I am contemplating buying DS a CD player so we can play some music at bedtime.

florence - ds has a mini system in his room - cd/tape/radio.

i agree about wrecking tapes, but alot of the audio stories for children are still on tape only & I'd like to think that ds has the option of listening to both cd & tape stories when he is a littl older.

hope that helps

Now that is a b*ocks statistic if ever I saw one!

I think Mother and baby magazine "commissioned" a survey of their staff.

Saying that though, if I had a spare telly (!) and enough wall space to be able to mount it high up, I would consider putting one in a 3 year old's room. But I would probably decide against!