How much TV time is too much?
According to numerous sources;
Nothing before 2 years old, 5-8 year old 1 hour a day and an hour and a half for children over 8.
I have never been a big TV watcher – probably as I had little to no screen time when I was a child ( we didn’t own one until i was around 5), my parents were and still are very active and so the TV was only viewed at night or for special occasions during the day.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching TV in the evening, but even then my viewing is often while I work and usually we watch documentaries or factual/news programs. (except Arrow – my one treat a week)
Up until 4 weeks ago, my children watched probably an hour a day of TV, they are 2, 5 and 15 – the usual excuse were I gives me a chance to cook dinner, or I am a WAHM and it gives me some time to work during the day – then something happened, a couple of parenting groups I belong to discussed the effects of TV and the link between TV and behaviour, learning and sleep and how much was to much, so I started doing some research of my own (read here for an interesting journal article)
I also found this poem by Roald Dahl
Television
The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set —
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink —
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
Roald Dahl
The next day the TV stayed off and off it has stayed for the children except one movie once a week, of which the 5 year old watches the whole movie and the 2 year old watches probably half of it. The 15 year old has an average of about an hour a day of screen time, but swaps TV for his computer games/social media etc – some days (like last night) there was none, others there is more than an hour (this does not include homework screen time however) We also watch less, the TV does not get switched on until 8.30, previously it was on from when the children watched TV and then switched over as they went to bed.
The first few days (as suggested in the poem above) were not as pleasant – the 2 year old did appreciate not watching Iggle Piggle going to bed and there were tears. The next day was easier and the next, easier still. A week went by and they no longer cared for the TV, instead finding toys that they had discarded, digging in the garden, making up stories and baking with me. The weather in Melbourne has been miserable (it would have been much easier for me to implement this in Summer, or Spring at least) and I still did not waiver, I wanted to see what would happen – would it make a difference to my kids?
I have always seen the TV as a waste of time, the last month has proven that to me. By switching on the TV, I was taking away lessons, be it social interaction with each other or measuring as we bake or growing things in our garden – I was taking these opportunities away. Did you know that the average American child has watched a year of television by the time they are 6 (i would assume that Australian children would have a similar finding). This truly saddens me. Many people argue that it’s at night time or poor weather so it’s not as bad – yes, it’s not as bad as missing out on sunshine and valuable vitamin D, but your kids have missed out on building fairy castles with wooden blocks that mine did before bed and the magic of waking to find that had visited or reading stories together and making them up or chasing each other around the house dressed as ghosts. Another argument for having the TV on, is that it is back ground noise – to that I ask, what about the radio or CD’s… we are a big fan of stories on CD’s and currently our favourites are ‘The Enchanted Forest’ and ‘5 Children and It’… Classical music sees my children break into dance and so too does music with a heavier beat – the 2 year old is perfecting her bottom wiggle and spinning to make her skirt twirl like her sisters…
The biggest surprise I was in for was the change in my 2 year old.
Prior to the ‘switch off’ she was in bed and asleep by 7.30pm(ish) on a normal night she would wake at 9.30 and then hourly to be resettled before coming into bed with us when i went to bed (around midnight) as a result of this she was often grumpy and appeared to be over tired all the time – I have never had great sleepers, they are like me, light sleepers and noises wake them.
BUT 2 weeks ago this changed… she still went to bed at the same time, but she slept until 2am and then came in with us – a one off I thought, but then she backed it up with another. A couple of days later I was telling a friend that Miss A FINALLY was getting the sleep thing together and she commented that it was probably related to the lack of TV… I hadn’t even associated the two, but she as right. That day was Saturday and Saturday is movie night – low and behold awake at 9.30pm, 10.30pm and 11pm before I went to bed and took her with me. Sunday, no TV and sleeping until past midnight again! I’m not saying that this will help everyone, but the screen time that my children had before bed certainly affected their sleep.
So, should everyone ‘switch off’ too? YES, Im not judging you if you don’t, but I have the same excuses that you can list. I am a WAHM and need to get things done, my kids are with me all day every day (except Tuesday), my husband works long hours so I don’t get much help, its cold and wet outside, I need to make a phone call, it stops them arguing at times… but childhood is too short to be wasted. I did it, you can too – your children will thank you for it, not necessarily in words, but in the way the behave and because you have given them your time.
AmbeRocks Me! 