Todays tip of the day

[anais]

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

Discuss...

If cbeebies was on 24/7 there WOULD be a tv in 2 yr olds room

I regularly commission these type of surveys as part of job and quite frankly they are often not worth the paper written on and are designed purely and simply to get media coverage. So it might 42% of three year olds but they only 'surveyed' 2000 people so that's under half and you don't even know what type of cross section of parents they asked.

as for me, no tv in DS's room but he does have a CD player which we bought when he was a shouty baby who wouldn't settle, to play 'Majors for Minors' the most lovely piece of music that is supposed to calm them (hmmmm...). Anyway, now we use it for nursery rhymes and lots of enthusiastic dancing.

Doormat you stirrer you!

I know Rhubarb but true
oh the peace and quiet of cbeebies

DD is clearly weird, we got the most basic sky package purely for CBeebies and she's really not bothered about it. We're now stuck with the thing for another 8 months.

We have a small TV in the sitting room and an ancient portable in the spare room. You can only get 2 channels on the portable though.

Dd doesn't have a tv in her room and I can't see her getting one for a long time. She does have a pc that's constantly connected to the cbeebies website and she does play on it for about an hour a night. Dp got it for her about 18 months ago and she loves it.

Anyone else at the 'too big for Cbeebies, too little for CBBC' stage? AAAAGH!

Yes dd is 4 and going to school so too big for bob the builder but far too young for byker grove, I guess that's why she plays on her pc so much.

My 16 year old does have a TV in her room it is an old black and white one. She watches it while she is doing her Art Curse Work. My other 2 age 11 and 13 do not have a TV.
We do have a TV in our room but rarely watch it its handy if ny DH wants to watch football. Also occosionaly the children want to watch different things so one of them will go upstairs.
I do not think young children shoould have TVs in their bedrooms you need to monitor their viewing.
Jenie why is 4 to old for Bob the Builder my DN is 4 and still loves this.

My God,

A couple of these posts (well one in particular) are so censorious. I wondered if it was a send up - its so 'Mrs Angry from Middle England'....

DS1 (4.5) simply comes downstairs and turns the main TV on when he wakes up. We leave it tuned into Nick Jnr. He's been doing this since he was aout 3 I guess. He won't have a TV in his room until he is well into his teens - I don't see the point. We have one in our bedroom, complete with cable & video so if there's ever a clash of viewing interests we can sort it out.

DS1 is allowed to play on the PC if he asks - they're probably going to be a huge part of his life so why stop him? He doesn't have any games as such though, just learning software and whatever's on the CBeebies or similar websites. I doubt he'll get a PC in his oom til he's well into his teens either. We might stump up for another one for the playroom though (or upgrade ours and give the boys this one!)

I have no problem with videos. After school for example, DS1 wants to chill out. He gets way too over excited if he "has" to play mad games with his brother or friends - he's just spent all day playing learning and interacting at school!

If you don't like your children to have access to TV, videos and the PC then fine. Don't assume your way is the right way and the only way and insult those of us who choose to raise our children differently. I do crafty things and take my children leaf hunting too so I guess they have a pretty balanced life really.

Chill!

Soupdragon,

I agree with your last paragraph entirely

mummee dd just doesn't find it interesting or funny anymore imo out grown it, the same has happend with lots of other programmes I was just using bob as an example .

My daughter is 19months old and has had a tv/dvd combi since she was one year old in her room. Some of you may be shocked but the reality is my daughter has CP (cerebal palsy) which often causes her to have spasms in her legs.

If i take her out of her cot she tenses up and it tends to last (hours sometimes)

Yet if i turn the t.v on she gently relaxs and often falls back to sleep within minuties.

So yeh some people might think i take the easy option out - i look at it this way if it means my child gets a good / painless night of sleep then it's worth it.

So i'm sorry that some of you think it's lazy, irresponsible parenting but there are many differnt sides to individual circumstance.

My daughter is 19months old and has had a tv/dvd combi since she was one year old in her room. Some of you may be shocked but the reality is my daughter has CP (cerebal palsy) which often causes her to have spasms in her legs.

If i take her out of her cot she tenses up and it tends to last (hours sometimes)

Yet if i turn the t.v on she gently relaxs and often falls back to sleep within minuties.

So yeh some people might think i take the easy option out - i look at it this way if it means my child gets a good / painless night of sleep then it's worth it.

So i'm sorry that some of you think it's lazy, irresponsible parenting but there are many differnt sides to individual circumstance.

My daughter is 19months old and has had a tv/dvd combi since she was one year old in her room. Some of you may be shocked but the reality is my daughter has CP (cerebal palsy) which often causes her to have spasms in her legs.

If i take her out of her cot she tenses up and it tends to last (hours sometimes)

Yet if i turn the t.v on she gently relaxs and often falls back to sleep within minuties.

So yeh some people might think i take the easy option out - i look at it this way if it means my child gets a good / painless night of sleep then it's worth it.

So i'm sorry that some of you think it's lazy, irresponsible parenting but there are many differnt sides to individual circumstance.

My daughter is 19months old and has had a tv/dvd combi since she was one year old in her room. Some of you may be shocked but the reality is my daughter has CP (cerebal palsy) which often causes her to have spasms in her legs.

If i take her out of her cot she tenses up and it tends to last (hours sometimes)

Yet if i turn the t.v on she gently relaxs and often falls back to sleep within minuties.

So yeh some people might think i take the easy option out - i look at it this way if it means my child gets a good / painless night of sleep then it's worth it.

So i'm sorry that some of you think it's lazy, irresponsible parenting but there are many differnt sides to individual circumstance.

sorry computer went a little mad

hmc, am I Mrs Angry, by any chance

Im afraid I stand by my belief that this is wrong. I am not against them having music, (sickbucket, would a cd or something not have the same affect on your dd?), although I wouldn't want it on constantly.

I don't believe it's right for children so young to have unsupervised access to the TV. I'm not so anti videos - at least you know what your child is being exposed to - but in moderation. I just think there are so many more productive things for them to be doing. We watch the occasional kids programme - kiddies programmes where so much better, more moral, when I was small - I cringe to think what message so many of them are sending out to our children these days, not the littlies ones, the next stage up, erm, anyway...occasional kids programmes, some of the schools programmes and nature documentaries. That's about all.

As for the Pc, my eldest has some software, and we use the net to do searches sometimes, or play games. The only time he is unsupervised on the pc is when typing in Word. Again, he rarely uses the pc.

I do think all these things have a place, but I think they are given far too much priority within our lives. I don't think it's right for very small children. I'm sorry if my views offend some of you.

I would be interested in your views, hmc.

i do partly agree - our dd does have a dvd on and not normal t.v as it's mostly in the middle of the night - except 2-nite we've had 2 episodes already and bear in the big blus house is playing as we speak.

when the spasms happen - we tried music but it dosn't give her something to focus on - so for us the t.v stays

Anais,

Well I didn't single you out and name you...but, okay admittedly as good as! Sorry But hey - thanks for starting off this thread - interesting reading!

I don't have a tv in my 15 month old dd's room - but that's not a principle thing. She just isn't particularly interested in television (yet). I'm sure there is some commonality in your views and mine - in that I wouldn't consider it 'healthy' for kids to watch hours and hours of tv without other stimulation and activity to give them balance. However, I don't necessarily think that a tv in the bedroom necessarily leads to excessive tv viewing.

I also take your point about unsupervised viewing, but a lot of the mums who have posted on here who have tvs in their toddlers rooms, have pointed out that they bar certain channels (can do that with sky packages etc) or don't tune in the tv so it supports videos only. That said, I think that if kids do end up inadvertently watching something unsuitable from time to time its not the end of the world. I'm aware of debates about too much violence on tv leading to a reduced threshold to violence etc - but I think as long as kids are brought up in a loving environment where their parent(s) instill basic moral values in them (such as not being violent / aggressive, and valueing other people etc) then a 12 year old who manages to tune in to 'American Pyscho' unbeknown to their parents, will be largely unaffected by the experience. However if kids are in someway fragile or vulnerable (have a homelife where they are subject to neglect / abuse from parents etc, plus other factors) and then watch tv like this, then it could be damaging....

Sorry for the waffle - but I think parental influence and example is a far more important determinant on how kids turn out than tv.

Bet you wish you hadn't asked me my views now. Are you still awake?

Message withdrawn

I think I must be Mrs Angry too! But to blow your stereotypes I do not live in Middle England and I am not middle class. Nor would I dream of telling others how to raise their children. I'm sure a lot of you have strong views on parenting, but you wouldn't call yourselves 'Mrs Angry' would you? It's natural that we all have our own views and that we are allowed to express them.

My personal opinion is that tv and pcs stifle a child's imagination. My m-i-l once said to me that sometimes children have to get bored, because only then are they forced to use their imaginations to keep themselves amused. And she was so right. We shouldn't be striving to provide round-the-clock entertainment for our children, they should be allowed to dream up entertainment for themselves every now and then.

I do hire videos from the library, and after nursery dd will watch 1/2 of a video as I feel that she's been so creative at nursery, her little brain needs a rest. I did let her use the pc once to play a Spot game, but after I saw how hooked my friend's ds was on the pc, I decided not to let her use it again. They have pc's at nursery and school so I don't feel I'm depriving her. And when she's older she can use the pc for her homework.

But I guess it does worry me whenever I walk into someone's house and see about 50 videos all stacked up, all for the kids. My sister used to be guilty of having the tv on from when the kids got home from school, to them going to bed, and then all day at weekends. She admitted that she didn't even realise it was on at times, it was just background noise. She's now started to limit it, but she's having a tough time as her kids are so used to just switching on the tv. It's not as though they use it to watch something specific, they'll watch anything that happens to come on. It's that addiction that I find worrying.

But if that's the way you choose to bring up your children then fair enough. Just don't criticise me for having an opinion on it as I'm sure you'd be just as quick to have an opinion on my own styles of parenting!