Kids & Tv

[Danni]

A comment on a poll on the main board got me thinking about this...

For those of you who have kids, those who have thought about having kids, those that are still kids..........

How much tv should kids watch?

I know when I was a kid, there wasn't that much on, but still we were extremely limited in what we were and weren't allowed to watch and how long we spent watching.

My son's paternal grandfather took it even further. He had a tv alright, but the kids weren't allowed to watch television programming. The tv was there for the sole purpose of being the 'screen' for his extensive video tape library and the kids were allowed to watch a movie every night. "Tv advertisements rot the brain" was a catch cry of his. (Gawd 10 kids in their household and no tv? Their mother must have had the patience of a saint!).

I limit my sons tv viewing to certain times and for example he must be ready for school and have had breakfast before he can watch in the morning (tip for parents - be specific about times there - I wasn't and ended up with the little bugger getting up at 5, ready for school by 5.30 and wanting to watch tv till 8am!)

So how much do you watch? or your kids?

too much?
not enough?

 

[Blues_Girl]

I work at before and after school care centre and we're open for 2 hours in a morning and 3 in an afternoon.

Most of our kids would watch tv for probably not more than 40 minutes in a morning and about the same in the afternoon.

We don't try to stop them from watching tv but we do try to encourage them to do other things. I think because we don't set a limit of how much tv they watch, they choose to watch what they want and then go on and do other things.

I guess it depends on the individual child I guess. When I was a kid tv was sometimes a reward, something like getting up on time and getting ready for school meant I could sit and watch tv until it was time to go to school.

 

[Bomber Spirit]

I don't have kids, but my telly is usually on Fox Footy - unless it's on one of the other sports channels. I don't watch all that much other than sports programs. Although I waste far too much of my time on the internet.
If I was ever to have kids, the telly would be for weekends only. At least that's the theory, but whether I could actually stick to it would be another story.
Letting the kids surf the net would be a good thing - at least whenever they were online they'd be reading. But I'd need to have some fairly strong filters put in to stop them accessing undesirable material.

 

[Sly77]

Interesting question Danni. As a young kid - I watched an awful lot of TV, up to 6 hours a day, nowadays I would be lucky to watch 6 hours a week.

My brother was quite a bit older than me - so a lot of adult shows were on in our house, I can remember as a 5 year old being scared by shows like Dr Who, and watching the lewdness that was Kenny Everitt. Most parents would be horrified to think their child was watching "adult" entertainment nowadays, but honestly most of it went way way over my head (still does )

I think overall the amount of time a child spends in front of the TV needs to be weighed up against the amount of time they spend interacting with other kids, how well they interact and moderated for the individual kid. If socially they have no problems then you've probably got nothing to worry about, however, if they're turning violent, mimicking shows, or just dont seem to fit in, its probably worth encouraging them to persue other means of entertainment than zoned out in front of a TV.