I brought my 18 month old in for her well check up at the doctors this morning… The doctor gave her a [name_f]Dora[/name_f] sticker and asked if she knew who [name_f]Dora[/name_f] was. I said no (because we don’t watch that show) and the doctor said “Good, they shouldn’t be watching tv at this age”.
That kind of made me cringe because my daughter definitely watches tv every day. She watches at least one episode of [name_f]Sesame[/name_f] street a day, and sometimes we have the television on in the play room when we’re in there with her, like watching a football game or something. Yesterday for example, she watched at least an hour straight of [name_f]Sesame[/name_f] [name_m]Street[/name_m] because I was taking down the [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] decorations and tree.
I now feel totally guilty and terrible about how much tv my daughter watches. It’s not like I park her in front of it all day every day, but when we need to get stuff done around the house, take a shower, etc, we definitely turn it on to keep her occupied (and safe because we know she’s not getting into trouble if she’s distracted!) There are also just as many times she’s in her playroom and I don’t turn on the television and she’s perfectly content playing with toys and reading books.
I generally hold the belief that most things are ok in moderation, but am I way over doing it? [name_m]How[/name_m] much do other peoples kids watch tv?
I think you are doing just fine. My daughter is 2 and watches maybe an hour of TV a day, she only watches movies that we own because we don’t have channels or Netflix.
Especially since it’s [name_f]Sesame[/name_f] [name_m]Street[/name_m], a very high quality educational show I think you are doing just fine. I think we as mom’s struggle with guilt a lot.
I can talk about this from several angles, because I was totally uptight about it when our big kids were little (we didn’t have a TV then) but have relaxed to the point where our littles probably watch too much TV now.
[name_f]IMO[/name_f], there is one question you need to ask here: is she developing normally? Saying words, pointing, etc? Progressing, especially with respect to language? [name_f]Do[/name_f] you read to her regularly?
If so, don’t worry one single bit about an hour of TV per day, especially [name_f]Sesame[/name_f] [name_m]Street[/name_m].
If you’re worried about her language development (or cognitive development) or have an inkling that it’s not helping her, or if you’re worried about her attention span relative to other kids her age (which, by the way, can be hard to gauge at 18 months) cut back to a few times a week, or maybe just stop for awhile and see what happens.
We just got back from a 5-day vacation to Mexico, and our 15-month-old seems to be talking a lot more than before we left. Could be coincidence/ developmental spurt during a critical time, could be that we played with him and focused on him a lot more and didn’t watch any TV whatsoever during the trip, or all of the above–who knows?
[name_m]Trust[/name_m] your instincts and she’ll be fine.
She is definitely on track as far as development; she exceeds or meets all milestones appropriately. We read to her every night before bed and usually randomly throughout the day. She loves books, she is constantly “reading” and/or carrying a book around. She chants “brown bear brown bear what do you see” (in less than perfect words) all the time!
I know she doesn’t watch any TV when at my parents or [name_f]MIL[/name_f]'s house (our child care providers), so at least the people I entrust her to do not park her in front of the television.
It’s just one of those things I kind of panicked about and wanted to gauge where I fell in the vast continuum of television watching in toddlers…
Freyja watches a little bit of Peppa Pig some days. Maybe between 30 mins and an hour per day (but not every day). It is easier to avoid it on weekdays I find since we get home at 4 ish and her father a little later, and bedtime is 7 so we usually have the energy to do 3 hours of playing/dinner/bath/bedtime without needing a TV break. There is of course no TV at her playschool so she sometimes goes the whole working week without any at all. Sometimes not. On the weekend we usually find that by the afternoon we need a little break. If you are at home with her all day I imagine you feel the same.
When she’s ill we sometimes go a little overboard, because she only wants to sit and snuggle then and there’s a limit to how many books you can read in a row, so we’ll let her fall asleep to a film.
I honestly tend to see a little TV as a positive because I only show her English programmes (and try to enforce a rule of no Icelandic TV for other people too, although it is sometimes broken) and it boosts her minority language exposure. I know that children cannot learn to speak from television, but it does increase vocabulary in children who are getting plenty of real human interaction anyway. I know that I personally learned a lot of words from Postman [name_u]Pat[/name_u] back in the day! I wouldn’t want her watching hours and hours of TV a day (not that she would have the attention for it anyway) but I don’t think it’s an evil in moderation.