Children and TV
By lisado
@lisado (1227)
United States
March 13, 2007 7:31am CST
This is a two part question. The first is how much TV do you allow your child to watch? Do they get to watch more on weekends and during summer break? Are they still allowed to watch it when they get in trouble (example - can they watch TV while being grounded or in Time Out)?
Also, are there any shows that you don't allow your child to watch? I don't mean adult situation shows, I mean shows that are supposed to be geared to kids (cartoons and such) that you don't allow your kids to watch.
For example, I read an Epinion one time about a lady who said that she didn't like her daughter watching The Little Mermaid because she felt that it was encouraging girls to not only ignore and defy their father but also to give up part of their life and dreams (her voice) just to get a man to love them. I never saw it that way, I never read that much into a cartoon, but it was interesting to see what someone else thought and why.
My husband and I HATE Barney and the Tellitubbies (SP?). There are some other shows (Cow and Chicken, Ed, Edd and Eddy) that we didn't care for, either, so we didn't let them watch them. The nose picking and such just gross me out and I'd rather my kids not learn that, if we can help it. Mostly they now just watch The Disney Channel (just the cartoons, we change the channel about 4pm since shows more for teens come on) but they also watch Blues Clues, Little Bear, and Dora on video.
What are your thoughts?
3 people like this
12 responses
@maddysmommy (16230)
• United States
14 Mar 07
My 4 year old son enjoys watching Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, Wonderpets, The Backyardigans, Blues Clues, and many other cartoons on Disney Channel or Cartoon Network. I don't put a limit on how much tv he watches however, I do make sure he gets do a variety of activities other than watching TV. I let him watch the occasional Animal Planet channel as he's fascinated with animals. If we had a backyard, I know he would prefer to be outside playing with his toys.
@maddysmommy (16230)
• United States
14 Mar 07
Oh and if he is in trouble, I don't allow him to watch tv, play playstation or his computer games.
@hcromer (2710)
• United States
14 Mar 07
I don't have any children yet, but when I do have some I think that I'll probably put a pretty big limit on the amount of TV they watch. I know that I've been watching enough TV to melt my brain lately, I would much rather get my children into reading or outside activities. I would let them watch some kids shows and I would let them watch more on weekends, I just think that it should be limited even if it is educational.
@JC1969 (1224)
• United States
14 Mar 07
My oldest is 19 and away at college, my middle child is 16, and my youngest is 7. My 16 year old, she doesn't watch much TV at all. After school, she is involved in extracurricular clubs and activities, and when she gets home it's dinner, chores, and homework. She also is trying to start-up a webgraphics and digital imagery business in her freetime.
The 7 year old, she only watches 3 hours of TV a day, including on weekends and vacations. The shows have to be family oriented or educational--and she is fine with that. She likes shows like "The Crocodile Hunter" and "Meerkat Manor" and she also likes Cooking show LOL.
@michelledarcy (5220)
•
14 Mar 07
My children probably watch about an hour of TV once a week on weekdays and at the weekend they watch it continuosly at their dads house.
I only let them watch CBBC or videos. I don't like cartoons as they are usually violent or scary.
@alen0224 (527)
• China
14 Mar 07
I have no children by far, but I also have something to state here. In my opinion, too many or no restrictions to children in watching TV is unreasonable, you should permit your children for some helpful or proper shows on TV, for example, some scientific popularization shows, this can bring up your children's interestings to the science & this is very helpful to them. On the other hand, no restrictions in watching TV to you children is improper either. Besides others, it is harmful to your children's sight if he/she stay watching TV for a very long time.
In a word, you can let your children watch some helpful and proper shows on TV and do make a limitation of their times spend on watching it.
@harikan148 (15)
• India
14 Mar 07
these days children are more intrested in watching tv .gone are the days when children played a lot .playing is a good overall exercise for children .they were of good body built .but nowadays children were lazy, lethargic. eating and watching tv all the time .even while studying they sit with tv on .
@p3halliwel2005 (3156)
• Philippines
14 Mar 07
I don't limit my kids on watching tv. They can watch anytime they want. I am not strict with that. My eldest daughters mostly watch mtv and girly stuffs like raven.. My sons watch power rangers,pokemon..my young ones usually watch Dora, Blues Clues...Some other shows they watch is Courage the Cowardly dog, Mr.Bean, They watch shows in the Disney Channel and Nickolodeon..The backyardigans, The suite life of Zack and Cody, Hanna Montana,Baby looney tunes,Tom and Jerry, detective conan...and lots more..My kids know their limits and I let them enjoy the kiddy stuffs since they're gonna be just young once. It is better they watch tv than do something bad or go out and stray..
@neezhom_almaniri (423)
• Malaysia
13 Mar 07
Too much TV for children are not good, especially when there are no sensoring. As we know many silence influence come from TV. And that creates our children attitudes and so on. So it cerates them slowly by slowly. So if we don't want our children to be what we don't want them to be, so keep monitoring them and don't let them influenced by the TV so much ;-) Love our children by smart teaching, and the best teacher is parents .......
@ronyroz (31)
• Indonesia
13 Mar 07
You have good taste for your children and I think you're in the right way. Let us think about the massage behind the story. It's not easy to applied for children, but may be ten years later we see the result.
@stacyv81 (5903)
• United States
13 Mar 07
My son watches Sesame Street, Blue's Clue's, dora, Diego, stuff like that but most of the time I watch with him and we do the interactions together, he learns a lot when he and I interact with the television. I dont really see a problem with television, unless it interferes with other things. Sometimes they get tired of learning from you as a parent and they like to see things like sesame street that teach them things as well. As long as they are still active and arent glued to the tv all day, I dont see a problem.
@mummyofthree (2715)
•
13 Mar 07
I tend not to impose restrictions on the amount they watch as they are quite good at judging it for themselves. If its a nice day they will go and play outside.
As for the programmes they watch... there are programmes that annoy the hell out of me and i do try and avoid them, but they have their own tastes and i try to respect that. I obviously dont let them watch x rated movies but I do tend to be quite lenient on the "adult" programmes they see. But I think that is something that would and does vary from child to child.
