Daily TV ration for a 2.5yr old?
How much TV do you let your 2.5yr old watch?
If he had his say, I think he'd be in there 4-5 hours a day. Of course, we don't allow that.
But, on the other hand, I'm wondering if 1 hour per day is way more than he should really be getting.
8 Answers
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We allow about 1 hour a day. Maya is 2 1/2 and pretty much has only seen Sesame Street and The Wiggles. She'd also watch all day if we allowed. She gets 1/2 hour in the morning as its the only way to get her to sit still while her mom combs out her hair. We usually allow another half hour or so sometime during the day.
The one thing we've been good at so far is, other than that, the tv stays off while she is awake. We don't watch any tv until she has gone to bed.
We've debated about eliminating the TV altogether but have yet to follow through (and given that I work for TiVo, may make it a little tough to do testing at home)
When she asks for tv, we often tell her that she can't watch tv but she can listen to music (through the tv). For now that satisfies her. Now that Pandora is available on the Roku, it makes it a little better than just listening to the CDs over and over.
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During the week, we generally only allow 1/2 hour (one show). However Friday is special "movie night" and the 3 1/2 yo gets to watch a movie (e.g. Finding Nemo or Cars).
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One to two hours max works for us, but to me it's more about the content than than the duration -- i.e. you always need to make sure you know what they're watching (I once saw a very graphic CSI commercial after a dora show on ABC which made it past tivo's parental controls since it was within the same 1/2 hour)...
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For a 2.5 year old, I think an hour a day isn't the worst thing in the world. Sure, in an ideal world he would be building with blocks or fingerpainting or something, but sometimes kids need downtime and you need to get stuff done. If you're worried about it, I wouldn't make it a routine, like popping him in front of the tv at the same time everyday or always watching 2 shows. That way, when you don't want him to watch quite so much he won't feel like something he always gets is getting taken away.
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The Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (the agency that regulates TV in France) says that children under 3 years old should not watch any TV at all and children between 3 and 8 should only watch programs especially made for children. Here is the article (in French, sorry).
We don't have TV but our daughter watches DVDs (Sesame Street, Dora, and Disney movies) which last about 1.5h. She used to want to watch something every day but it was clearly out of habit (and boredom). We've managed to break the habit by playing with her from the time she comes back from daycare to bed time and now she doesn't ask for it and plays by herself while we prepare dinner etc. Once in a while she'll ask for a DVD and we play it for her but she usually doesn't sit in front of it and goes back to her game.
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It varies for us -- some days nothing, other days 0.5 to 2 hours. More than 2 hours seems excessive to me.
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A Grandma says : I definitely agree that TV watching limits need to be established. I am very opposed to having the TV on all day/night long as mindless "background noise." I also know that TV has some good, instructional educational programs for children. ( I know a 4 yr. old who enjoys " Planet Earth"--which is very sophisticated material) And -- as Kristie says, children need downtime too. Children need to calm themselves and relax at times... just as adults do. Parents also need to do a million things like prepare meals, get dressed, clean up -- and at times like these, the TV can be used quite effectively for children. I don't feel like strict time limits on TV watching are needed-- but I do think that with very selective supervised TV viewing, both parents and children can be happy.
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My sons are now 7 and 4, but I've watched their behaviour regarding the TV change as time has gone on. I wish I had imposed more stringent limits on their TV watching early on. We used to limit the TV to a couple hours a day, and they watched only educational and age appropriate programing. But now we have turned it off all together during the week because it was causing my older son to not pay proper attention in his class room. He was constantly wanting to act out the shows he watches with his friends instead of doing his school work. Also, his negative behaviour when the TV got shut off was a real problem for us at home.
I'm sure other children don't have as much problem with this as mine do, but I personally wish I had put greater limits on the TV early on and am doing so now with the results being a more peaceful home and hopefully soon a more productive child at school. I never would have guessed it would matter this much.
