No tv rule

[happychange]

My DS is 12 months and we are trying to avoid any screen time for him, so ideally no tv, phone, iPad etc.

Just wondering if anyone has any advice for or against this?

I remember watching a lot of tv when I was younger and it was fun to talk to friends about tv characters. Wonder whether DS will feel left out if he doesn't watch any tv..

The dullest people I knew at school and university were those who didn’t have a television at home.

I know where you’re coming from, OP. I wanted my DD to play only with wooden toys and I fully intended for her to never have screen time either but it didn’t work out like that. Plus watching Peppa, Ben and Hollie and now things like The Worst Witch ate truly lovely to do as a family. We all enjoy that. She also uses screens at school and I think having some experience beforehand made her more confident with touch typing etc. I think you can get a nice balance and encourage some good habits without letting screens rule.

I'd say just wing it and see what happens. DS is 13 months and doesn't watch TV but that's because I'm not really a TV watcher. I just naturally don't put it on. DH puts it on for an hour or so in the evening before bed but obviously DS is asleep by then

Do what you want, but there are worse things in life then a bit of TV.

Well I opted for no tv when my dd was growing up and I'm such a lazy sod I would have just sat in front of it otherwise. And my dd is anything but boring.

However it is a lot harder to cut out screens nowadays.

Great at 12 months. Much less important or easy at 7.

Also if you are planning on having another, a bit of TV is very useful in the early days.

If you can get to about 2 without much and then gradually introduce a small amount. I think by the time they get to school age a small amount won't harm at all. Also they will have some screen time at school anyway and by the time they grow up they will be in a completely different digital world so you wouldn't want them to be disadvantaged.

My friend has 3 (age 3, 1 and baby) and they don't watch tv. They Do however read books about Peppa etc so they carry on conversations about them and went to see Peppa pig live etc!

I think you are absolutely right while he’s under three. The social aspect does matter later on though.

I have friends who didn’t watch telly as children and they feel they missed out as they don’t understand a lot of cultural references. I prefer to do everything in moderation, I don’t subscribe to the all screens are bad school of thought.

I know people who are absolutely rabid about this rule. It’s not one I could manage with. Ds gets a bit of TV when I’m cooking dinner for example. He’s learning both our languages and it’s useful to have songs in both.
I think everything in moderation- hours of TV and shoving kids in front of it for hours is bad. Fifteen minutes of them jumping up and down singing along to incy wincy spider while you get dinner on is probably fine.

I’m always wary of these ‘absolutely no...’ parenting rules. No sugar at all, only organic food, etc etc. It’s quite restrictive and I think it focuses on the wrong stuff. It gives the false impression that if you just avoid TV/do every activity under the sun/ban sugar then your hildren will be fine. In reality good parenting is about the long term. It’s aboit stability in he home, love, security, emotional stability, freedom within expanding boundaries and a million other small things that are often quite hard to do over years.

A bit of telly (or indeed chocolate) doesn’t do them any harm. Banning it doesn’t guarantee anything.

Ds has been up since five, I have HG and I’m spewing loads. The telly is on, he’s happily building a duplo house and I feel zero guilt about it.

I dont know how you'll enfonce this later on in life unless there is no technology in the home at all! Are you prepared to give it all up yourself?

Fine at 12 months when they don’t get anything out of TV or screen time anyway. I found that screen time is only useful to them from about 3 years old and then only in moderation. Before that they don’t have the attention span anyway.

By 6 years old, they definitely do tend to feel left out if they aren’t seeing films or TV shows. It becomes part of the school conversations and normal life.

Girl down the road didn’t have tv at home and whenever she came to play all she would do was glue herself to the tv screen....I stopped asking her 😕 as there wasn’t any point - she didn’t want to play

ivykaty we had the opposite experience with TV owners and non-TV families. The new who were used to lots of TV or computer games had trouble playing freely when there were no screens available.

The advice I read was no screen time until 2 and we were fairly strict in enforcing this with our DS1. After he turned 2 we gradually introduced screen time, he’s 3 now and we just try to make sure he doesn’t get more than a maximum of 1-2 hours screen time a day (everything in moderation etc). Occasionally he goes over this if we’re travelling or when he’s poorly.
With DS2 who is 1 now we’ve been unable to enforce the same rule ever since he got mobile unfortunately, because he will watch bits here and there while DS1 is watching tv (mostly YouTube actually). We don’t sweat it as much now the second time around tbh!

I wouldn’t let them watch Peppa Pig though, can’t stand her!

Peppa pig is hilarious

Do you watch TV? Kids do what you do.
From year 1 my kids are expected to use a laptop/ computer/ tablet / phone to do their maths homework on mymaths. It only seems to be every half term. I'd actually rather have worksheets backed up with Lego blocks but we do what school ask.
Kids don't lose anything by delayed exposure, tablets are so easy they pick it up straight away. Technology is in the eye curriculum, so avoiding it at school will be tricky. But I agree at 1/2/3 there is so much more important stuff they can be doing / learning.

There’s some really engaging cBeebies programmes on phonics, numbers, animals etc. My DD learned to read (at around 3) from programmes like alphablocks - I would have never been able to get her as excited about letters as those little sods!

I let my children watch tv from a young age. I needed time to get things done.
I also put on phonics songs on YouTube and they learnt a lot.
They also learnt a lot from programmes like deadly 60 and horrible histories.
Now they’re a bit older, we watch documentaries and quality tv.
I don’t think tv is bad when you’re selective about what you watch.

12 months is one thing but when they’re going through the terrible twos there’s nothing more appealing than a bit of Peppa Pig or suchlike. I don’t think it does them any harm at all and can be educational and entertaining. We watch tv to relax so I don’t see why children should be denied the same pleasure.

Certainly as they get older and reach school age they would be very left out without tv and tablets and online games etc. Like it or not it’s what our society and culture is all about at the moment.

I have two dc, one 6 and one 15 and I am very laid back about screen time- infact we have no rules about it except that we have a no gadgets in bedrooms rule (mainly for my teen, she has to bring her iPhone down and plug it in to charge in the kitchen at 10.30 every night). Other than that they can go on things / watch whenever they like. Having a relaxed approach means they tend to self regulate anyway. We go out a lot, every day off we are out somewhere. We are very outdoorsy. We just enjoy screens!

We are not entirely screen free (DS6 is watching curling at the moment) but other than sport we have no TV. DS1 watches nothing. We take DS6 to the movies. And he does one online homework a week. But no games on the iPad and no TV before or after school. He can entertain himself beautifully, finds a book and sits in a corner and reads when he needs to. I have done multiple long haul flights with both kids with no screens and absolutely no disruption.
The kids watch what we watch- sport. And I hate having the TV on and background noise. DS6 has had no problems making friends or fitting in at school.

Selective is the key. Ds (2.5) was entranced by blue planet and he picks up all sorts of random words (krill, anyone?)

As he’s not exposed to much English here I feel it’s beneficial for him to watch a bit of TV in English. Obviously just be selective about what you show but nature programs, cartoons, songs.

Peppa pig and Ben and holly are funny - are you missing the adult humour in them? They crack me up.

So yes my second son is a year and a bit and we both work full time and have happily managed zero screen exposure for a year.
1-2 hours of TV a day is a lot. Even I don’t watch that much TV!