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I know this item was in the news last year, but A. Sigmund is at a Westminster conference today talking about his ideas on limiting tv time for children.
The piece on the BBC web pages has his recommendations for the different ages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6582385.stm
Any opinions for/against?
Yes it should be limited but I don't think there is a hard and fast rule across the board. It all depends on the kids age, intelligence and quality of program. I also think family TV is a different issue also. If you let your TV be a babysitter that is very different that sitting down together to enjoy a good show or film.
Tracy, see got you right this time, I think you are right. My two girls love TV, books and games. They also play together and I allow my eldest to play in our closed off street. I will not allow her to play further than the top of our road however. Yes it is a big bad world but we also have to remember that it is also an adventure to live. I don't think it is paranoia though. After the cases involving those poor girls at the hands of Huntley and other barbaric events, not to mention guns on our streets, I think it is caution.
Are parents too cautious these day? Yes probably but I think the images we see on TV are like none our parents had to endure when we were younger. So maybe that big bad wolf mentality is a little more of a reality now.
We are lucky enough to live near a great park and spend a lot of time there. My daughter also plays with other children in our street. She is lucky as her school friend of the same age is not allowed outside after she comes home from school until the next morning.
It is a fine balance between paranoia and necessary caution. I do pity kids these days as they certainly live in a less adventurous world than I did and no amount of DVD's or Playsations will ever make up for that.
This is a tricky one isn't it? I'm 38 now so when I was a child, children's TV was limited to an hour or so before the evening news, a few hours in the mornings during school holidays (Why Don't You? Remember that one?) and then - ta da! - Saturday morning TV in the late 70s or early 80s, as well as a few programmes on Saturday afternoons (Dr Who etc) and the odd other one that appealed (Tomorrow's World). So the 'limit' was easy - there wasn't an option.
These days, there is a lot more choice and a lot more hours devoted to children's TV, some of it very good indeed, some of it a bit pappy. So like the 5 portions of fruit and veg, I think TV certainly has a place in the menu of a child's day alongside other nutritious morsels like books, sand & water, enjoying 'helping' adults with tasks, chatting and playing outside. And yes, it does depend on age too.
I can vividly recall getting home from school one day when I was about 8 and my sister 4/5 to find our first television sitting in the corner. We could watch BBC children's programmes, but not ITV apart from Black Beauty on Sundays (which for some reason used to terrify my sister). We didn't watch a lot and used to play indoors and out, read, scrap, invent plays annoy the heck out of each other.
When I worked for the bookshop I did a lot of reading about the effects of TV on family life - the best book on the subject I found was Marie Winn's 'The Plug in Drug' which had some really interesting case studies.
We don't have kids, but if we did they'd have been limited and encouraged to have as many diverse hobbies and interests as they could.
Those recommendations seem utterly sensible to me, but they are unlikely to make much of an impression.
Unlike most children I knew, my daughters were not allowed to just turn on the tv whenever they felt like it. When very little, I used to put Sesame Street on for them; later we'd check the Radio Times to see what was on (no channel-flipping here!). I also used to watch with them quite frequently, and still do - although now it's mostly DVDs and classic tv series on Virgin Central. Oh, and 'Desperate Housewives' of course!
Upshot: my girls read more than many of their friends, spent more time playing in the garden, and also learnt to be selective in their viewing and critical of the advertising. They still have to ask about turning the tv on if I'm in the house - it's only courtesy. I don't like the noise. When I'm not in, they do flake out in front of the box like every proper teenager, but at least they watch good stuff! However, I have noticed that they still get irritable and strange when they've had too much tv.
Note above the use of 'THE tv'. Yes, we only have the one.
Comments
The piece on the BBC web pages has his recommendations for the different ages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6582385.stm
Any opinions for/against?
Are parents too cautious these day? Yes probably but I think the images we see on TV are like none our parents had to endure when we were younger. So maybe that big bad wolf mentality is a little more of a reality now.
We are lucky enough to live near a great park and spend a lot of time there. My daughter also plays with other children in our street. She is lucky as her school friend of the same age is not allowed outside after she comes home from school until the next morning.
It is a fine balance between paranoia and necessary caution. I do pity kids these days as they certainly live in a less adventurous world than I did and no amount of DVD's or Playsations will ever make up for that.
These days, there is a lot more choice and a lot more hours devoted to children's TV, some of it very good indeed, some of it a bit pappy. So like the 5 portions of fruit and veg, I think TV certainly has a place in the menu of a child's day alongside other nutritious morsels like books, sand & water, enjoying 'helping' adults with tasks, chatting and playing outside. And yes, it does depend on age too.
When I worked for the bookshop I did a lot of reading about the effects of TV on family life - the best book on the subject I found was Marie Winn's 'The Plug in Drug' which had some really interesting case studies.
We don't have kids, but if we did they'd have been limited and encouraged to have as many diverse hobbies and interests as they could.
Unlike most children I knew, my daughters were not allowed to just turn on the tv whenever they felt like it. When very little, I used to put Sesame Street on for them; later we'd check the Radio Times to see what was on (no channel-flipping here!). I also used to watch with them quite frequently, and still do - although now it's mostly DVDs and classic tv series on Virgin Central. Oh, and 'Desperate Housewives' of course!
Upshot: my girls read more than many of their friends, spent more time playing in the garden, and also learnt to be selective in their viewing and critical of the advertising. They still have to ask about turning the tv on if I'm in the house - it's only courtesy. I don't like the noise. When I'm not in, they do flake out in front of the box like every proper teenager, but at least they watch good stuff! However, I have noticed that they still get irritable and strange when they've had too much tv.
Note above the use of 'THE tv'. Yes, we only have the one.