Mar 15, 2008
Kids and TV: I’ll try to be open-minded, but I really don’t understand.
Many admirable parents let their little children watch TV and movies every day.
Would anyone be interested in explaining this to me?
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Theme based on Derek Punsalan's Grid Focus.
To teach them great dialog like, “That’s a lovely new coat of red paint, James: sorry ’bout your face tho’.”
I don’t think it’s a matter of “let” I think some parents pro-actively want their children to watch TV in order to babysit them. This stems from the belief that children get in the way of our lives. We would be helped if we creatively thought of ways to incorporate them into our lives – whether washing dishes, sweeping the floor, going out for coffee.
Free babysitter.
This question begs another: Is there a reason said admirable parents sit in front of computer screens every day – work not included?
Good one, Liz.
Personally I think all “screens” are bad news. But here I am at the computer. I haven’t watched television for about 15 years. I don’t seem to miss too much of the culture. I don’t think my kids would either. You have permission to ask me again if I ever have kids.
TV replaced our lost babysitter: freedom. Neighborhood kids, creeks, empty lots, games of pick-up ball, and make-sure-you’re-home-before-dark!
I see the negative side-effects of TV on kids already–that’s why I’m asking the question.
So what I want to hear isn’t an explanation of the problem (although that is helpful, too) but an explanation from some parents who think it’s good.
And I’m not trying to start a debate, either. I’m genuinely curious what loving parents who let their kids watch a bunch of TV are thinking.
We allow our kids (age 5 and 3) to watch probably an hour or two of movies (not TV) and this is only every other day, maximum. Veggie Tales is one worth mentioning. Often that series has one one-hour program dedicated to a very specific character or spiritual issue. I try to match a VT topic to what one or both kids are struggling to learn. This is a god thing, given that we use them as a secondary source of instruction. In addition, of course, we spend dozens of times per day, and untold cumulative hours, personally praying with, instructing, and discplining the kids on that same topic.
I agree with the concerns expressed above by others of allowing the boob tube to babysit little ones. Have I or my wife ever been guilty of this? Yes, a very few times on particularly hard days.
So, I wanted to share this, though I don’t think I could be defined as a parent who let their kids watch a bunch of TV. Could I?
I was raised without TV. As a result, I was literally drawn to the screen every time I was around one. As there is a TV almost everywhere, this made for great difficulties in conversation. It took me a long time to get over this.
We have a TV, and we limit what our son can watch to that which we feel will be uplifting. Admittedly, this severely limits his TV watching time. Hopefully, he will not be as fascinated with it as I was, because it won’t be so much of a novelty.
That’s an interesting argument, Andrew. I haven’t thought of that one before.
I didn’t have a TV growing up either, and I remember my dad having a hard time keeping my attention on a conversation when we were out at places that had TVs.
So can anyone tell us from experience whether having a moderate dose of TV growing up makes it generally easier to ignore them?
My daughter is 2. I honestly never thought I’d say this, but I let her watch TV whenever she wants. Which, as it turns out, is almost never. She naturally wants to explore her environment and not sit in front of a screen. I feel like by not restricting TV (I of course would if it got out of hand) she’s learning to not be “drawn” to it…it’s not forbidden. TV was forbidden at my house growing up and whenever I would go over to a friend’s house that’s all me and my siblings ever wanted to do was watch TV. We didn’t want to play we wanted to watch TV. My husband and I set an example by never watching it (only because we can’t afford a digital converter box or cable lol) so it’s just naturally not something that’s a part of our lives. But it’s not often that I have to say “no TV” because my daughter just doesn’t crave it.
“GOOD”?
See: it’s not good in and of itself, and it’s not bad in and of itself. C.J. Mahaney had a quip recently which I liked that was to the effect that you have to choose your child’s companions until they know how to choose them for themselves — and that includes what’s on the iPod, what’s in the books they read, what’s on TV.
I think there’s good TV and bad TV, but I think there’s no TV that’s good for a child under the age of 3 or 4. Under 4, you need to be reading with them and running them through the park or the winter-in-MN equivalent, even if it means your house looks like it’s been looted.
“Good TV” is TV which you can watch with your kids, pause at critical moments, discuss vigorously, and enjoy together. “Bad TV” is TV which takes your place and supplants your role as the teacher of values and relationship.
Try this out: disconnect the cable for 60 days, and only watch video content you have intentionally chosen, and only let your kids watch TV when you can watch it with them. Or better yet: try no TV for 30 days — cold turkey. Read out loud with your kids every night for a month, like Narnia or (wow!) the Bible.
When you try to go back to watching as much TV as you did before the fast, you’ll be amazed at what you used to think was acceptable.
That’s to the Dads. To the Moms, I was unemployed from April 2002 to August 2003, and I was the stay-at-home dad to 2 kids under the age of 6. In the morning we watched 30 minutes of Mr. Rogers while I did 2 loads of laundry, and after nap time we watched 30 minutes of Clifford while I started dinner. I will admit that the house never, ever looked like a photo spread in Good Housekeeping, but it also was never condemned by the health department of DHS.
Don’t let TV run the house. It can be managed to a good end, but if you let it off the chain, before you know it your kids will be treating each other like DW and Arthur — or praying to dragons like the kids in “Dragon Tales”.
And this is me, folks: the guy with the comic book art theology blog. Be careful.
I think, honestly, that we let our kids (4,7) watch (some) TV because they enjoy it.
That DOESN’T mean that we let them doing anything/everything they enjoy, nor do they have unlimited access to television/screen time.
They don’t have screen time everyday, but sometimes, if they are being allowed to watch a movie, they may get more than an hour in a single sitting. There are only certain shows that we TIVO that the kids are permitted to watch–Jeff Corwin on Animal Planet, Reading Rainbow (some), NASA specials, Wonder Pets, Magic School Bus and even Dora the Explorer.
We also read to our kids everyday (Bible, fiction, non-fiction) and require our son who reads to read both silently and out loud everyday.
It’s ridiculous to unilaterally condemn all television. Neil Postman has come the closest to a solid against all television, but even his work has focused more on the banality of programs (both substance and style-wise) than the existence of the medium. You have to look at people like Billy Graham and Al Mohler, who have extended awesome ministries into television appearances and programs.
I can’t comment on the parenting side of it because 1) I’m not a parent and 2) I can’t really know what I would want for my child until I come closer to that reality. But I think television can be a source of good or evil, just like music, the newspaper, church (!), or whatever. What matters is how it used, why, and how much is too much.
Our son gets to watch probably 1 show a day–an educational video from the library, or a Veggie Tales tape…
I know I could use that 30 min to sit by him and read, teach, bring him with me downstairs to “help” with laundry, etc….but:
1. We do those things throughout the day.
2. 9-11 hours at home with just mom is a LOT. I don’t expect him to be thrilled at CONSTANTLY hanging out with me.
3. He enjoys it. He learns things in fresh and exciting ways (see #2). (He learned his letters and letter sounds and is now starting to learn to put words together from all the LeapFrog videos–no, we don’t let the videos do all the teaching, but he had so much fun learning that way).
Food for thought–a friend of mine told me I shouldn’t feel guilty for letting him watch a tape every once in awhile, because it’s not like I live in the era where generations of women were together all the day long while the men were out working. They all helped each other. I am by myself with 2 young kids all day long, and still have a house to keep up with, relationships to keep up with, outreach, cooking, fund-raising for my adoption. I have no one helping bear the burden during the day, and I do not feel guilty at all about letting Calvin sit and watch a carefully-chosen show while I tend to something that I really need to be able to do just by myself–an important phone call, sitting in a brief moment of quietness reading the WORD, taking a bath, giving his sister a bath, family administration/mgmt tasks, etc.
I thought when we first started our family that we would never let our kids watch tv, unless it was something educational. I had lofty dreams and visions of how being a SAHM to our kids would look. Then reality hit, real life happened, and the TV came on about once a day once our firstborn was about 2 or 2 1/2.
[disclaimer: this is written in jest, not out of criticism, pride, or anything else negative.]
try this for 2 weeks: let your spouse leave the house every day, all day for 10 hours, while you tend to small children who need a million things done for them… oh, and don’t forget to do absolutely everything else while you’re at it–cleaning, preparing 3 meals plus snacks, cleaning up those 3 meals and snacks, teaching, training, playing, tending to your own spiritual needs, serving your wife, serving others, bathing the kids and yourself, doing the grocery shopping and other errands…..then see if you start to think about turning on the tv once in awhile :)
I may get reamed for this–I let our 3 year old EAT in front of the TV sometimes! But he eats so much better when his mind is occupied by something else….so be it.
Late to the party I know… but I have to second what Kendra said about trying to entertain a 2 year old for 10 hours a day. She needs her space from me as much as I need it from her.
For me too, my 2 year old gets up at 5 am. I can’t realistically go to bed at 8 pm each night and get the amount of sleep I need to beat her up each morning. So, she gets up with her Dad while he gets ready for work and watches some TV until Mom has rested and taken care of the baby.
My 2 yr old also eats at least 1 meal a day in front of the TV. It is one of my only chances to get a mental break each day.
My daughter enjoys Ni Hao, Kai Lan; Sesame Street; and Wonder Pets. She has learned valuable lessons from each of these shows and they reinforce the things I am teaching her in the “off” hours.
On top of it all Nick, Jr. has done a fine job advertising their programming as “Preschool on TV.” They take the guilt right out of it!
We are exremely picky about what (and how much) we let our kids watch, and we have regular “TV fasts” (as we call them) where we don’t turn the television on for a week, just to make sure that we are controlling it and not the other way around.
On the flip side, our kids derive great benefit from a brief time of carefully chosen videos, and there are occasional times when I derive great benefit from having them occupied (without making messes!) for an hour or two, especially when I am sick or packing for a family trip.
As with so many of these standards-issues, I — and all of us — fight a sense of superiority (okay, pride) over those have higher or lower standards than we do (who, in this instance, watch more or less TV than we do). It’s hard to remember to allow others to make their own choices on things that are not clearly sinful. It’s way too easy to fall into that pride and feel justified about it…but that’s not what it should be about!
(I’m glad you manage the 22-word limit, because I have far exceeded it!)
Very helpful for perspective, Kendra. Thanks!
Marsel, you are absolutely right. Regardless of which standard we choose, we need to be careful to allow others to come down elsewhere on the issue.
Josh said:
“Free babysitter.”
Nonsense. I pay for mine.
We let our children watch some tv everyday. We do it becuase they enjoy it and because I don’t think it hurts them.
We try to limit it to 1 or 2 hours but the amount of tv they watch is in direct proportion to the amount of times my wife throws up in a given day (she is pregnant again). At one point, she was throwing up about 5 times a day and was esentially bed ridden. We limit it to seameme street, veggie tales, disney princesses and stuff like that.
Both my children could sing the alphabet before they were 2…. and sometimes my youngest eats like cookie monster… so there you go. Perhaps that makes me a bad parent, but my 3 year old can also quote about 8 bible verses… but then again she told me yesterday that Jesus went to the cross and then the earth moster came and we all get dogs. I can’t say it’s wayne grudem level theology but I do like dogs.
Late response.
One reason alone will do: The Swedish Chef.
:)
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I don’t have kids but I have these great ideas about them, like maybe I won’t ever let them taste chocolate or candy and then they will never know about it until they are older and they won’t crave it and get fat. And I won’t let them watch tv or movies and will make them play outside in a tree house all the time… then I remember that I love chocolate and enjoy the occasional movie and never want to miss my fave show, LOST. Then I remember that I would have to live with these kids too and a 18 years of no chocolate and no TV Sucks. So why do parents do this? Probably because they enjoy these activities as well. Besides, right now there is zero room in my backyard for a tree house….