anti-tv again -giving up the box - calling spidermama and other to help with giving up!!!

[ernest]

Hi, this is thanks to SPidermama and others - following earlier thread, I got that book, Remotely Controlled, and am totally horrified. hoenestly, I was so shocked before I'd even finished the introduction!

I have now pretty much banned tv in our house (the kids were allowed to watch a dvd they'd already borrowed from library, and Doctor Who - can't give up DW) But apart from that, no tv at all.

For older 2 it's no problem, had only couple of complaints. For youngest (aged 3) he's only complained tiny bit.

BUT How the hell do I get anything done now? Sounds terrible. I did always feel guilty about him watching too much tv, now I've stopped it, but my house is a bloody pig sty now. So how do you cope with young kids + housework - tele???

BTW everyone should read this startling book and give up the evil box.

but doesn't aric sigman call it all 'screen time'? i can see the point of dvds for parents, since it make things easier to limit, but from what i've seen of sigman he Disapproves Of DVDs as well. no screen time for children under three. [confident the J Aniston has best celebrity legs]

anyway, this week's Panorama is goiing to prove that children are vile when watching loads of tv and angelic when it's out of the house, so you can all give yourselves a wee cuddle about that. of course... you have to get someone to record it for you.

Pruners, I agree that when your child is quite young that you need to limit the amount of tv that they watch.

SOme older children get more choosy about what they want to watch and will just turn it off it they are bored or want to do something else. Well, dd does this anyway - she's been doing this for about a year now (she's 6).

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i suppose that given my job (tv critic) it's a bit different for me. i watch tv on dvd for work, so i'm not given to having it on as background noise. but dd loves In The Night Garden and i do use cbeebies as a babysitter when i need to. i was asking my mum about it and she said that without grange hill etc we'd never have eaten home-cooked meals... so there are swings and roundabouts.
but aric, honestly... he's a gurning freak imo.

Yes, Bod, Clangers, Hector's House, Bagpuss etc were nice gentle slow paced programmes.

A lot of the ones these days have too much going on and probably overstimulate.

i've got to say that i really do mourn the afternoon B/W films on BBC2. much more educational for a young girl than blimmin' Tracy Beaker.

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Ooh Tracy Beaker, don't like her. Not a good role model imo. (I'm only going off her appearance in "Party at the Palace" have never seen the actual programme)

In fact don't really like any of Jacqueline Wilson's characters.

Bring on The Flumps, Picture Box, Brambly Hedge etc.

I've just bought dd the first series of Little House on the Prairie (good wholesome stuff )

aitch, no he doesn't lump 'em all together, well, he does say limit screen time (so adding computer, ps etc) but he does differentiate bwn watching tv & dvds. Dvd much better than tv & tv eg bbc better than eg nickelodean with very fast-paced stuff & loads of adv.

I've never herd of him before, he's not on my Christmas card list, but I think that he has made a lot of valid points. Ours has bee a much happier house since we switched off.

It just shocks me to think that average viewing is 4 hours per day for adults, and loads of kids are watching a whole lot more than that. It's reckoned that by 75, adults will have spent 12 years watching tele. That's really frightening. On average people spend more than 1 whole day every week watching tele. That is such a waste. I genuinely find that really really shocking. And in some houses it's constantly on tin the background. Like at my pil. It's on ALL day & int eh kitchen too, so they wander from one room to another and it's on there too. And they just stare at the screen. ds3 starts beating his brothers up, as if he sees Power rangers. Then they bag for every toy known to man.

I explained to them last night, that they wouldn't be watching much any more, they were interested didn't complain and agreed. It was similar to ages ago they started to want to go to McDonalds. Kept begging to go (99% for toy) we had a talk about how bad the food was, discussed Supersize Me (they found that fascinating) and now they refuse to go, even when offered, but "well-meaning" relative.

They will not be persuaded that sweets are anything but wonderful tho. Sour Power rules,

oooh i loved the b&w films. The wicked Lady was the best

love Laurel & Hardy

loved all the Gainsborough Pictures, tbh. and harold lloyd, buster keaton, chaplin, L&H, all of them. i really think children today are missing out. lots of knockabout comedy and twisted melodrama, that's what made me the woman i am.

it is rather a lot

i have actually never had a tv

it disadvanages me with those "did you see x on blue peter 20 years ago" conversations but then people get to ptsl at my deprived childhood, so i am hardly left out

seriously, i never had tv, wasn't an issue really. and am pretty at amount of tv some kids watch. 3 yos watching 3 hours a DAY fgs.

Pruners - do you know there is a bagpus soundtrack? It's lovely.

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Here - it comes under Sandra Kerr

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would anyone be willing to lend me a copy of this book? I'll pay postage and send it back to you...

ernest, I got the book out of the library and read about half of it, but had to return it due to lack of time to read it as I was moving house! I am going to try and get it out again and finish it though - it was compelling (and chilling) reading even though I read it with my sceptical hat firmly in place.

Where we have moved to we have no TV reception (which we didn't know about at the time) and therefore at the moment we have no TV. I am loving it - the peace and quiet, the opportunity to read etc. I have two dds (8 and 10) who will sit and watch a dvd in an evening (and all their dvds are ones we adults can tolerate ) and we will probably continue to rent some from the library. But they spend more time reading, drawing and listening to stories on CD than they did previously.

My nearly 2 year old doesn't seem to miss TV at all, which I was a little surprised about as he loves it. He is pretty good at amusing himself though when I am busy so I'm afraid I haven't got any advice there, except to get your ds to "help" with chores etc (make it a game for them).

The kids never used to watch that much anyway; it was dh in particular who will stick it on then leave it on all day/evening and though I will then watch it too I don't particularly want to watch it.

Dh is now getting twitchy and muttering about getting sky ... grrrr - I would happily continue as we are!

I might be getting the book you mention mixed up with another one but wasn't there a recent scandal about flawed research into TV watching. Research was commissioned by a pharamaceutical company trying to blame TV watching for the rise in autism and AHDH in children. The point was to try to turn the attention away from innoculations and various other treatments.

Saying that, I'm sure that limiting TV watching can only be a good thing.

Am not trying to start any sort of debate about TV or vaxing, just saying I would be cautious about how factual some of the more disturbing claims are.

My worry would be not how do I get any housework done (I also use the 'helper' method') but how would I get any MN time!?

yes, I wonder that too. Coincidentally, a friend of mine went tv free for a month as an experiment and tried to persuade me to join her so we could compare experiences. I didn't then, but I am tempted now. My boys could only benefit, I'm sure.

You may have a point, beachcomber, but tbh I think that whatever the research says, I personally feel it is not a good thing to be spending hours in front of a TV. I would say the same about spending every minute of your free time reading, or drawing, or playing with lego though - to do one thing to the exclusion of all others is not going to contribute to a well-developed child (or adult) - we need to have a variety of experiences in our daily lives. As I said, I read the book with a great deal of scepticism, but felt that a lot of points were valid, even if the research were to be proved shaky (and I'm not suggesting it was or wasn't).

can you link to the research, pls, beachcomber?

dp, who works with big pharma quite a lot, knows nothing of it and I'd be interested

Aitch if you have freeview, More 4 do b/w films in the afternoon at roughly the same time - 4-6ih hth