Tv in child`s room, good idea?

Careful_girl

Sorry I ranted a bit I just find that as an infant teacher there are very few children that I have taught who have a regular story. Many more have a TV. I know we are a good bunch of people on here and I appreciate you replying with your lovely stories, it just hit a nerve. Perhaps if people would worry about the reading as much as the TV it would be better.
May you all enjoy your stories!!!
CG:o

Careful_girl

Aha! (Great band)
One of my best readers ever (4) used to complain that she had read all the stories I read in class. Being a rather fun and resourceful teacher I was pretty annoyed at this (can't ask them to predict the end when they know) So I asked Mum. She informed me that every weekend they went to a car boot sale and she gave the child £1. The child would return with 10 books and filled her room with books.
Libraries are good too.
CG

Rachie_B

lil_me wrote:

Exactly :T Well thats if the parents are sensible enough to moderate it.


My sons room is like that at 7, we have 2 book shelves and 2 massive boxes, then there is another cupboard full in the sitting room, and thats just one of my children. I think when I was working out my budget for this month and trying to see where I over spend it is mainly on books. So have started going to the charity shop more.
I'll be honest quite a bit of my sons speech came from TV, when I started letting him watch more it improved, but like I said he has ASD . Unfortunately the documentaries he enjoys are mainly American and he has picked up the accent lol.

same here carboot sales are usually good for kids books too

some programmes for children CAN help with learning / speech etc

my son totally shocked me when he suddenly counted to 5 in spanish one day when he had just turned 3 !!! and from watching dora the explorer once a day he picked up lots more spanish !!!

the only problem with that was we had to go "exploring" in the woods near our home and had to sing the song :rotfl: :rotfl: and in shops etc hed say at the top of his voice "swiper no swiping" :rotfl: :rotfl:

my eldest used to like barney and that was very good for ryhmes / songs / the world / environment / shapes / colours etc

my youngests fave DVD at the moment is called Day full of fun,it features janet ellis and its from the 70s / 80s :rotfl: the fashions are erm interesting :rotfl: but he loves the songs etc from it,does the dances etc

but hes getting to the age now where hes being influenced by his peers and so is also into power rangers and that kind of thing / cartoons etc which have no educational value at all

Poppy9

DD is 11 and her bedroom is a TV, PS2 and computer free zone. There are 3 TV's in the house. One in sitting room, one in dinning/sitting room and one in my bedroom. The dining room one is mainly used for Karaoke and games and the bedroom OH late at night.

I was never allowed TV in my room till I was 16. My parents thought it was anti social and they couldn't monitor what I was watching. Now I dislike watching TV on my own as I have no one to talk to about the programme.

Juicy_Tube

libraries are of course FREE too!

We often go to NCT sales and pick up cheap books and toys. I will never buy full price again..LOL

Some of the pound book stores are also very good. I just picked up a load of Spot books for £2, RRP £12-bargain.

JT x

chloejane_2

interesting thread both my kids from age of 3 ish had tv video combos in their rooms, then they got a dvd player about a year later, simply because they enjoyed watching their own videos like thomas or barbie over and over again! we would watch the video with them some times, or on a weekend morning they could put a video or dvd on and lay in bed watching film resting, if they are ill they like to snuggle in bed and watch a film, they also both got their own ps2 at christmas as they liked to play their own games and when their friends come over for sleep overs they can all do their own thing. they watch tv with us and we watch films and documentarys as a family, mostly the tvs are used as a treat if a friday saturday night they go to bed and watch a film as its not school nights so they stay up a bit later, they dont really gt used that much and i personally do not see anything wrong with it they are both fit and healthy kids who do after school activities, go dog walking, go to the park, feed ducks, play camping in the garden and endless activities that keep kids entertained away from the tv, i think its just about getting a good balance of everything.

margaretclare

Fascinating discussion. Here's a perspective from another generation...

I have never been a great TV-watcher myself. I think I realised how anti-social it could be when we came back from 2 years in Cyprus. Before going we'd gone round all my husband's family and they'd all been glad to see us, when we came back they weren't glad to see us because their favourite TV programme was on and it was 'be quiet, we're watching'.

When I was a student nurse in the late 1950s I met a man who said he'd bought a TV and it had to be on. If he went home from work and it wasn't on, he said 'why wasn't it on' - he'd paid for it and it had to be on.

I've never seen the need for having more than one TV in a house. Before DH came, in the early 1990s I won a small TV in a competition. I already had a TV and didn't want another, so I gave it to a woman at church - she'd been recently widowed and she wanted it in her bedroom 'to keep her company'. She used to have it on all night because she didn't like being alone.

I've watched some of the programmes in the series 'Honey we're killing the kids' and I've been struck by just how often the advice given is 'Take all the TV sets out of children's bedrooms'. In some cases they were watching into the small hours and their school work was affected because of their lack of sleep.

In 3 years' time we'll reach the age when we can have a free TV licence....well, it's possible that by then we won't even have a TV set at all. We watch it less and less. The only thing it's worth having one at all for at the moment are the nature programmes - being able to see things that you wouldn't see at all by any other means. I saw a wonderful programme recently where it had taken weeks and weeks to get a film of a Himalayan snow leopard. Any of Simon King's wildlife photography. Tiny cameras inside a blue-tit's nest. The European eagle owls in north Yorkshire.

Apart from that, much of what is on TV is cr*p. People tell me that there used to be wonderful TV programmes in the 1960s and 1970s - well, mostly we didn't have a TV at all then and certainly in the 70s I was too busy.

I feel very sorry for parents nowadays. They are put under enormous pressure by this 'everyone has one' pester-power. Starting at age 3....children are socialised into their future role as consumers, spenders, buyers. I think it's sad.

Margaret Clare

swizzle_2

wow, I did not think I would get such a response!

I can understand where your all coming from, and having watched `Honey were killing the kids` did think Tv`s could be a bad idea. But then again as with all tv programs-they choose familys that are extreme-so they can show good results.

I never had a tv in my room until i was 15, and then only because my grandad died and it was his old b/w portable.

My children walk to school, do after school sports/clubs 2 nights a week and I think have a fairly good diet. They do both like tv, especially my eldest ds. He llike`s Zoo Vet, spring watch and property programs, plus kids stuff. They are only allowed to watch tv which i think is appropiate.We never have crap like Trisha on!

Maybe it`s peer pressure because everyone else seams to have one. He might change his mind by his birthday.


Thanks again

gk172

swizzle wrote:

Maybe it`s peer pressure because everyone else seams to have one. He might change his mind by his birthday.
Thanks again

We have a dvd combo but no ariel in our daughters room and the dvds allowed are kids only as youngest is 7 so no 12s and when my daughter was turning 12 she asked if she could have an ariel for her birthday, we sat her down and explained that no when she goes to bed its after 9 and inappropriate stuff is on teh telly and her reply was that her friend has sky in her bedroom :eek: she then went on and asked for msn on her side of the computer again shared with the 7 year old as everyone she knew had msn again she was refused as the thought of her talking on there and her lack of knowledge of the big bad web horrifies me. I have spoke to some parents and there answer is if there on the pc the door is allways open and they pass from time to time, what good does that do we all know how easy it is to put the window down:doh:

Anniek1969

I have had a tv in my room since I was about 10 and my daughters also have one. They have tv, dvd player, ps2 and a pc in their bedroom and they're always too busy out with friends to use them.

I allow them to use MSN but monitor who they have in their address book and am constantly passing the pc and read what they are saying, they're not allowed in chat rooms and know that if they ever used it for chat rooms the internet connection would be removed. They use the pc quite often but for school projects and my middle daughter is always using it for problem solving games and mathematical games on a website my oldest uses in high school.

I think that everything is fine in moderation and you have to find a proper balance. We have to accept that the use of pc's is the way of the future and that they are widely used in schools and nurseries so by not allowing them usage from a young age could be disadvantaging them for the future. On the other hand the discussion is about tvs in the bedroom and I do believe that too many people use it to babysit their children and don't monitor what they watch. There are many educational programmes on the discovery channel which is very often on in my house and to be honest the tv is on most of the day although it's not actually being watched most of the time. It is a habbit that me and DH both grew up with (FIL was a tv engineer) and it's just a habit of swithching it on in the morning and I don't think we would even miss it that much if it wasn't there, certainly don't miss it when I go on holiday. I still encourage the kids to read and we very often visit the library and we spend as much time as we can doing family things. I don't think their education or health suffer by having a tv in their bedroom again as long as it's monitored, it certainly hasn't done my three any harm. Oldest 2 are doing exceptionally well at school and have always received excellent reports for them, if their education did suffer then the pc would be removed from their room and they would be made spend more time studying.

Wouldn't worry too much about having a tv in the bedroom as long as the viewing time and content is monitored and it's not just used as a babysitter so the parent can have a quiet life. I also think that peer pressure is responsible as well, when all the other kids in school are talking about a new tv show or abour the new dvd they've just bought then they very often feel left out and sadly some kids feel the need to bully these kids and use them as a target for jokes. We live in a very materialistic society and it is difficult to find the balance but in my opinion you can find a balance and teach your kids about the real values in life.