Consult the website ‘Kids’ health’ and you will read this:
‘The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under 2 years old not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming.’
Now I’m not going to disagree. TV is a bad bad thing. (except at 2am when I eat icecream and drink coffee). I really don’t want our kids to watch heaps of it…it’s is depressingly mostly rubbish…and worse. But here’s the thing. Let me describe a family I know:
It includes mum and dad (it could be dad and dad and mum and mum but here it is mum and dad)…and there are two children under four. Mum and dad both have families, but on lives interstate, the other overseas. Friends are plentiful and generous. Neighbours are plentiful and neighbourly. And yet there are 24 hours in every day, and in this case mum is kinda tired and dad kinda works. Ie does paid work to pay nappie bills etc…and the occasional thai take-away. Unless there is some screen time for the kids it means one or both of the parents playing with them. Yes, they should play on their own. From what I can see, they do. And yet without lots of OTHER people, the proverbial village, raising the kids and from time to time, checking in on the parents, one option – and I am sure to creative individuals there are many options – ONE option is the screen; whether movies or TV. Possibly lamentable. Certainly true. Too many screen hours is not good.
In a modern world, hard to avoid.