How much TV does your DC watch and does it effect their behaviour?

[Boobalina]

My DS is 4 next month and he watches on average:-

7am - 8am -Cbeebies
Then off to nursery for day

6pm to 6.30pm Cbeebies, then quick bath.
6.45 to 7pm - Tiny Pop - 'Strawberry Shortcake'

If its a weekend - it would be:-

7pm to 8.30am - Cbeebies

1pm - 2.30pm - a DVD if we are at home.

5.30pm to 6.30pm Cbeebies, then Strawberry Shortcake after bath.

What do you reckon?

Mine don't watch any tv at the moment cos it's not working - no noticable improvement in behaviour! We tend to all watch a dvd together at the weekend though. If the tv was working it would probably be on whenever they were in!

it varies day to day but i really don't thi nk it has any effect on their behaviour..although it may chill them out a bit if they need a breather

Mine dont watch any since I got rid of the telly.

About an hour a day split betwen morning & bedtime. He does play with an American accent at times.
BANNED Chop Socky Chooks because he was shouting 'hi-ya' and hitting us

I'm glad the people so far on this thread let their DC watch tev. Have seen some threads where hardly anyone's DC watch tv and I've felt guilty!
I've been worrying if my DS watches too much telly. He's 19 months old and watches 1-2 hoursmost days. But during that time he's not always fully focused on tv.
I'm not sure what the detrimental effects could be but I do know the Night Garden calms him down and signals the countdown to bedtime.

ds 4yo - if we're in the house the telly tends to be on, but that's cos I like background noise and ceebeebies is unlikely to flash up anything that's inappropriate for ds.

He'll sit down and watch it for about 1/2 hr in the morning and again before bed. Sometimes he'll have a 10min break when he's tired or eating.

Ds isn't that fussed with telly and tends to play in front of it. He's never kicked up if it's turned off and he's not bothered if we go to someone else's house and it's not on.

On the weekend or when me and dp have a day off together we'll sit down and watch a film with him, but he does other stuff at the same time.

He's like me in that he doesn't like to be alone and having the telly on means I can leave him while I am doing other stuff as it is 'company' (well to a certain extent). We both listen to the radio/talking books at night.

I do turn it off when people come round (except for those people who leave their telly on all day like I do).

Telly isn't really something I am that bothered about tbh - I don't think it has any effect on his behaviour.

Positive note - DS has picked up some sign language from St Justin of CBeebies

Negative note - DS owns more Ben 10 stuff than Toys R Us

Boobalina that you can get your DS bathed in 15 mins.

It takes DD that long to get in the bath!

DD is nearly two and a half. On a normal day she watches 20 mins of CBeebies in the morning and 40mins of CBeebies before bed.

However, if I am tired or one of us is ill she gets to watch alot more and quickly becomes dependent - begging for a "tiny bit of Beebies" the moment I dare turn the TV off. When she watches TV it stops her playing, drawing, pottering which she normally does and which I think is healthy.

As a result I am really trying to stick to her normal TV routine.

It can affect ds (4.8) in that he focusses entirely on the tv in short bursts and can't hear me but it doesn't seem to affect his or dd's (7½) behaviour.

In fact, half the time I have to switch it off as they have disappeared.

I don't usually allow tv just before bedtime though - that's catch up with daddy time (as well as bath, story etc)

depends as sometimes they will watch a lot thenothers they are not interested. I tend to turn tv on of an evening at about 6.30pm just to stop them running around so much and winddown for bed.

Ds is 2.4 and watches very little becasue it drives me to distraction.

However, we have both been ill this last week and I have been heavily relying on CBeebies.

He is currently sat on my knee watching Pingu in another window!

Oh, and amongst my friends, I see no difference between the telly watchers and the non-telly watchers.

DH bathes both kids over other night and he does it pretty swiftly!

We do seem to have a form of melt down when TV is switched off, and he does seem to prefer it to playing with his toys ...

He's at nursery four days a week from 8.30am to 5.20pm and I think he is getting really tired by it all...

Nemo, yes the amount they watch can vary enormously - I don't have set viewing times and don't make an issue out of it (although of course at times I tell them to turn it off)