How much television do you let your kids watch?

[Shine]

My kids are 9 and 12 and during the school week, we have a rule of 1 hr per day, which basically translates to one half hour show, per kid. I also make them MUTE ALL COMMERCIALS b/c I hate those damn things. During the weekends, I tend to be a bit more lenient with the TV time, however.

My 12 yr old just got a computer, for his bd, so I'm still workin' that little detail out, in terms of how much time to allow him to be on. He uses it for "educational purposes", and yes, we've got it majorly Net Nanny'ed up. :)


I'm curious, what do y'all do about TV and computer time for the kids?? Do you monitor it?

:hi:
Shine

[wildeyed]

1. Absolutely.

I have the same rule as you, one show per kid per day. If they want to play computer or do the handheld Leapster game, they can choose that instead of TV. My kids are much younger than yours, 3 and 5. Recent studies suggest that TV (and I am extrapolating this myself) computer games change brain development in young children, leaving the child more vulnerable to ADD. The research on this is still in the early phase, and I certainly don't blame parents of kids who have ADD for letting them watch too much TV, but to me it makes some sense, at least as one possible contributing factor.

For me, it is a constant struggle. They are always trying to wheedle more TV time out of me, and it is so damn easy to just turn on the box so I can have a few minutes of peace. Oh well, the weather has been nice. I just kick them outside for the last few days :)

I have a friend who has older kids, and her kids have a weekly "media allowance", a certain number of hours then can spend watching TV or doing computer games. They can do it all at once, or a bit everyday. Seems like a good idea. Teaches children to think ahead and budget their amusement time.

[Shine]

2. Hmmm...I like that: "media allowance" idea.

...although I suppose the down side to that idea is that you'd need to have some sort of tracking system or chart, to manage who's got however much time left. I've personally never been much of a chart-keeper with my kids.

but I totally agree with you about kickin' them OUT of the house to go get some damn exercise!!

The 1/2 hr show per kid, per day rule works pretty well on our end. Simple, yet elegant. I like it!
:hi:

[Dora]

3. At 10 months, our son is too young for TV yet

I guess my husband and I are at the radical edge of TV watching: we don't own a single set, so we don't watch.

When I was in grad school, I watched TV when I wasn't in class or writing. After graduation, I would have the TV on from the time I came home from work until midnight - 6 hours an evening, watching, even if only with one eye sometimes. On the weekend I would park it on the sofa and watch crap all day long. It became so bad that I impulsively gave it to Goodwill when they had a truck in our complex one day. I had a month of serious anxiety after that, I didn't know what to do with myself or with my time. After I moved in with my husband, I started watching TV again, and my old habits slowly returned, and he joined me. Finally, we lost that TV in a burglary and we decided not to replace it. That was almost four years ago. Our friends still think we're a little nutty, and our families are (mostly) tolerant of our aberrant behavior. But my father-in-law just sent us an old VCR, so I wonder sometimes what message he's sending us.

I'm of the school of thought that any TV is too much TV for kids. I don't see TV as a tool for anything other than advertising, and I don't see that there is anything gained in a DVD that 10-20 minutes of sitting down and reading with our child couldn't accomplish. I understand that TV can offer parents 20-60 minutes of uninterrupted time, but I would much rather have my kid learn how to self-entertain. I was reading on my own before I ever went to school - and my parents didn't have a television (and this was in the 70's, the Sesame Street glory days).

That said, I don't think any parent can fairly restrict their child's television viewing habits without fairly restricting their own. IMO, this is probably the hardest part for most parents.

I'm not sharing all this to be critical - I just wanted to share my perspective. I don't think television is inherently bad. I do, however, believe that I'm happier without it, and I want my child to have the same experience as I'm having.

[Shine]

4. Well, good for you, Dora.

I'm impressed with anyone who takes the NO TV stance, and I agree with you about it being used mostly as an instrument of advertising. That's one of the main reasons I'm always insisting the kids MUTE all commercials. I hate them, pure and simple...but, at the same time, I can appreciate the value TV can bring.

The TV has been very useful to me, as a parent, at time, I must admit. Esp. in their younger, pre-school years, when they watched "educational, non-commercial, public-supported TV", like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, etc.... With my first kid, when I was home alone with him F/T, I would sometimes park him in front of Sesame Street, in his playpen, so I could take a damn shower!! I was definitely grateful for it, in those moments.

Maybe you'll get to that point, someday, too. Or maybe not. :) Hey, I've heard even Madonna never lets her kids watch TV, either.

For what it's worth, I watch very little TV, myself. We mostly use ours for DVD rentals....:hi:

Shine

[wildeyed]

6. I would be willing to ditch the TV completely

but my husband is not on board. Since we watch, I don't feel I can tell the kids no, completely. After I read the study about kids brain development and TV, I stopped watching completely while they were awake. Apparently it doesn't matter what they are watching, or if the parent is the primary watcher, just the TV being on causes the issues.

For what it is worth, my daughter taught herself to read last year soon after she turned 4, and we do have a TV. I think some kids just learn stuff like that earlier than others, but the others catch up later. My nephew didn't read at all until he started school, but now he is a very advanced reader and my sister had the TV on nearly non-stop :shrug:

[mzmolly]

5. I have a friend who's parents restricted TV to a great extent and she is

now an addict who advocates against doing so LOL.

I've personally lightened up over the years, somedays my child watches none, otherdays ... quite a bit.

I have an only child with a neurological condition - and at times we all need a "break." TV is an excellent way to distract and get her mind off things. Also, we live in a cold state, so in the winter months she watchs more. However, I am choosy about WHAT she is able to view. Though I'm finding that she makes good decisions in that regard on her own quite often.

;)

I admire those of you who feel that limiting TV is important, I really think for most kids it's a great way to go.

[rbnyc]

7. We don't have a set rule...

...we just try to keep healthy about it ourselves and hope it will rub off.

In general, however, we prevent our son from viewing commercials.

He does watch Seseme Street most mornings. He really loves Elmo.

[MediumBrownDog]

9. Another Sesame Street devotee here...

and from previous posts, I think our sons are around the same age (~ 16-17 months). We love PBS (no commercials), especially the shows like Sesame Street with music, which cause him to dance around in glee. We're also fortunate enough to have "expensive" cable for a discount because my husband works for a phone/cable company, so we get the Noggin Channel (commercial free pre-school TV by the Nickelodeon folks) and he loves "Jack's Big Music Show" on that channel.

I know there are people who have the ZERO TV thing going, and I really admire them. But that's not our house, so we try to make sure that he has as few commercials as possible and that the TV is on for a reason, not on as a droning presence. And that reason can be, as another poster pointed out, a shower for Mama with baby in the pack n play. He's safe and entertained.

My husband just reminded me that our son spent the first 5 months of his life falling asleep at night to college football in his father's arms.... can't help that! We have a tiny, tiny house. The baby was so used to it that when the bowl games were over, we had to turn on ESPN Classics to get him to fall asleep for a few weeks. Something about the announcers' voices and the applause and football noise that sent him into la la land.

Whatever. I don't stress about it. I was raised with TV, my husband was raised with TV, we both completed graduate school and seem like reasonably adjusted adults. TV is part of our lives (and an even bigger part of his grandparents' lives, where he spends 4 hours/day x 4 days a week) and the result of that is that the baby ignores it 99.9% of the time. It's not a novelty, and he really couldn't care less. His main missions in life are getting you to play with his trains or read him a book, ironically enough. "Play trains???" "Read book???" "Chooooo choooooo!" "Chugga chugga chugga chugga." "Book? BOOK NOW??"

It's all good. Peace.

[fight4my3sons]

10. My kids love Jack's Big Music Show too.

Especially Baby Bongo Bird. That's what we call one of my twins. He loves drums. He got some bongos for Christmas and my older son said "just like Baby Bongo Bird!" ever since then the name has stuck.

They like that new show on PBS "Big, Big, World" and were also very excited to see that "Signing Time" started on Saturday mornings. We have been using "Signing Time" DVDs in our house since the twins turned one. My older son was a late talker and twins usually speak at a later age, so we started sign language with them to help with language development.

We also stay away from channels with commercials. We only watch PBS and Noggin.

[rucky]

14. Yep. PBS and Noggin for my toddler.

also I-Spy on HBO. She actually learns a ton from the shows. LOVES Little Bear, Dora, Pinky Dinky Doo, etc., and she's engaged when she watches - not a zombie at all. We probably let her watch more than we should, but she has tons of other activities she loves to do, and spends plenty of time reading, doing art, pretending, dolls, blocks, puzzles, "fixing things", dressing up, chasing the cat, music and dancing. Whatever we're doing it's working - she's an awesome kid!

[bleedingheart]

8. On school nights - none

On weekends they are both allowed one movie each and we monitor any extra programming we let them watch.

Get this...they actually play with their toys, have an imagination and can draw beautifully...I think in some regards that can be attributed to their lack of dependence upon TV.

I will note that my views on TV morphed over time...when my son was young he had much more severe asthma problems and I would let him watch movies while he got his asthma treatments which lasted for 20 minutes a pop...and they occurred every two to four hours apart...

By the way our TV is password protected....yep we are pretty mean parents...

[grasswire]

11. here's something I've noticed

The background: We have a multi-generational family. Grandmother and aunt are used to having the television as background noise while they work at other things. CNN or the Food Network or HGTV or C-Span or documentaries. The mother and the two young teenagers have not lived with the TV as background noise. They watch movies and Simpsons and some other shows, and the kids of course watched Sesame Street etc. as children.

My observation: The television has enormous power over the family members who don't live with it as background noise. They cannot take their eyes away from it and sit hypnotized even during commercials. If they walk through a room where something is on the television, they MUST WATCH it even though a quick glance shows them it's not remotely interesting to them.

So if you have children who don't watch much television, I honestly think you must watch them for signs that it has this hypnotic power over them. It wouldn't be a bad idea to do something else while Sesame Street is on, such as playing a game or doing a craft or even talking together.

[mopinko]

12. bedrooms- tv and computers

i learned the hard way. there are no computers or tvs in the bedrooms of any kid under 18 in my family. my oldest escaped to the tv in her room, and almost never came out.
my kids watch too much tv, and spend too much time on the computer, but at least they do it out in the open, with their siblings arguing over the remote.

[oregonjen]

13. I try with one hour a day, but sometimes we watch more

My kids loved watching ZOOM on PBS, but all of a sudden, Oregon Public Broadcasting stopped airing it. I wrote to them and they responded with the fact that PBS did not have the funding for ZOOM anymore, thus, they won't be airing it. How sad. A good educational tv program that my children loved (and I loved watching growing up years ago) does not have the funding. However, crappy tv shows on Nick and the Cartoon Network suck my children's time away. I hate the current admin for so many reasons, this being one of them.