Children and Television

i also think that kids watch too much tv. now it is summer vacation here in canada and it is really hard getting my kids away from the tv for any length of time. its too hot to play outside too!

With a very busy environment where a mother has a career and needs to work away from from, a nanny will just leave kids in front of a television the whole day without considering its effects to the child. I am not working anymore but my baby is used to watching television every morning when she wakes up. That's what her nanny before was doing. But now that I am here already, I don't allow my child to watch the whole day. I just let her watch for most is two hours in the morning just enough for me to be able to do some household chores while she's watching. Then at noon time we will watch together and also in the evening.

I have seen my sister taking care of the children and I think sometimes she exaggerates when she keeps the children too much infront of the television just to be able to do some more households, she put some cartoon movie and let them watch that so that she can do other works at home, we have talk to our sister and I think she understand it.

I agree with you. Children should be playing outside and using their imaginations instead of watching television. I have friends and family members as well that allow their children to watch television all day and it drives me crazy!!! My husband and I are expecting our first child in October and we agree that our child will play outside and do arts and crafts with little television. When we look at how we were raised with maybe an hour of television a day compared to our friends who's parents allowed them to watch television all day; we are more active and are willing to do house work (inside and out). I think more parents should let their children play and do other stuff and even participate with them instead of letting the television grow them up. To me...the parents are lazy that do this. I know the people know that do it are.

I allow my children to watch TV but definitely not all day! Plus, the only shows I allow on their TV's are cartoons that are appropriate for them. No matter what their age in my house they will NEVER be allowed to watch shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park... Those are adult shows and they will not be allowed to watch them until their out of my house. My kids watch educational shows like Barney, Dora, Kai Lan, Little Bear... All of those type of shows =) And, they watch them for about 2 hours per day. The rest of the day we play outside, we have our Preschool classes and we do lots of other activities! I cherish my time with my children =)

Any caring parent would limit their children watching television to at least 4/5 hours per day (split into morning and afternoon)- certainly no more than this when children are creative and need interaction through stimulating activities. However, I imagine that for a lot of families their schedule is sometimes very hard and then difficult to find alternative things for their children to engage in without it always costing money, so understandably they leave their child to sit in front of the box for hours at a time with no idea of the consequences this can bring. It is an isolated activity, so the child learns to develop antisocial skills if this is their main activity and regardless of whether what they are watching is educational in some way. Teaching your children to swim, read and write are just as important and need this brain activity even after school because if the parent shows an interest, then so does the child take their learning more seriously and adjusts to some amount of healthy discipline: not the same thing as strict parenting in which parents push their children well beyond what they are capable of too early. Continuity of care and routine are what children need the most until they are old enough to do some things independently, so as long as they have this then they should grow up to be happy and content people.

Although my children do watch TV, they don't watch it all day, I would not let them. Television can be good for children and can give them some education, but as a parent we can teach our children more than any TV show. TV is like a treat, they both have their favourite shows, but luckily for me, they prefer to be outside in the fresh air playing, or doing things with me. My toddler actually prefers his books to the TV, and quite often sits with me looking through them. I like you have no problem in my children watching TV, but would not allow them to for a whole day.