No TV for Little ‘T’

Since before my baby girl came into our family I knew that I did not want her to watch TV, that statement in itself tends to get people thinking that you are a bit ‘alternative’ to put it politely; but for many reasons we have decided that it’s best that she watches very limited television, and as I only watch about an hour’s tv at the most a week then it wouldn’t seem right for her to be plonked in front of the tv for hours on end.

As a child, I grew up with only being allowed to watch certain programmes, at the time I used to think this was a silly idea of my Mum’s but now that I’m a parent myself (and before being a parent) I can see why. My baby girl has been very ill this past week and I have turned to the television for help in calming her down when she has cried in pain and needed some kind of entertainment, in this instance the tv has been so needed, though apart from now, and at Christmas when she was ill when she watched an hour’s tv, she has never had it on in the day unless she goes to a friends house or if her little baby friends come to my house, which I don’t mind as then it is a ‘treat’ for her.

Through my studies in social science and currently a child psychology based module, I have discovered that through much research, a child’s IQ is often actually lower by the time they go to school if they watch entertainment based children’s TV programmes, although a small amount of educational programmes can actually boost a child’s IQ. This has led me to search youtube for some inspiring and educational tv programmes for her, as although I do not want her to watch tv for the sake of it, I do understand that some programmes are educational and good for them, I’m yet to find anything that Ireally love although I wish there was a version of this in an English accent (purely for the different way that we pronounce our letters/words):

Instead of turning on the box, I’ll include her company whilst I cook her meals by letting her explore the veg that we use to cook, we go for walks in the garden where we look at the ducks in the stream at the bottom of the garden, look at the flowers, water the vegetables growing and feed our pet rabbit, she ‘helps’ me when I fold the washing and sweep the floor etc, and recently I have started to let her watch certain videos on youtube similar to the one above just a couple of times a week.

These are my thoughts for now and what I think is right for her at this age and before, as she gets older I may let her watch more although we will hopefully be in Australia by then and have a much more to do outside in the warmer weather where it won’t be such an obvious thing to do…….(hopefully!)