Lately, A has gotten an introduction to the almighty television, thanks to her daddy. I'm not exactly thrilled about this development. I think the less TV a small person (and a big person for that matter) gets, the better. I can see the educational and entertainment benefits for sure, but I can also see a habit developing that I don't like.
She is obsessed with characters now. She wakes up talking about them, she talks about them all day, and if we do turn on the TV so she can watch, she talks about it all during the show. She talks about it until the moment she closes her sweet eyes at night.
This is what is sounds like, in rapid succession:
"Watch Elmo?"
"Watch Grover?" (pronounced gopher)
"Watch Dora and monkey?" (pronounced dowa)
"Watch Bert and Ernie?" (pronounced but and uhnie)
"Watch Cookie?" (pronounced kucky)
"Watch Gabba?"
When you tell her they are not on, or that you aren't going to turn them on, you get the whole list, over and over --
"Elmo off?"
"Grover off?"
etc.
At the end of the day when you tell her they are sleeping, same thing. She needs to confirm that they are all indeed sleeping and no one is still awake to spend some time with her. So funny.
To our credit, we don't use it as a babysitter, at least I don't see this happening when I'm home. I suspect it might happen a little bit when daddy is home alone with her. We watch with her, and we talk about what's going on. We play the games and dance with her, so it's an interactive experience overall. More and more, though, she is becoming immersed in it, and she zombies out. This worries me a little bit.
One great thing about TV is that she is a little sponge, and if the program is positive, she drinks it all in, processes it, and repeats it over and over and over. The other day I heard her reading books in her room and she was saying "six, six, six". I went in there to discover her pointing at the number six. That was the number of the day on Sesame Street the day before. The benefit of watching is that I know she is learning.
She will learn about anything she sees, which is also why I won't let J watch horror movies or shows with adult content when she's around. She just doesn't need those images in her mind! I don't know how much harm it does, but I know it can't be much good.
I have two main objections to TV watching. One, I don't want her to become a fat, lazy, zombie couch potato. I want her to be active and interested in all the world, not just a flat box inside the house. This is especially challenging in the cold weather, I can see that already.
My other objection is that I do not want her to become a victim of marketing and commercialization. I don't want her to grow up having to have all the trendy toys and be obsessed with whatever the marketing machine is feeding to her at that moment. I want her to explore and find her own interests, not just be a demographic for someone to make money from. That part of our culture makes me sick! J doesn't feel as strongly about this, but I do. It's going to be quite the trick to navigate this as the materialistic current is so powerful.
I can't ban her from TV altogether, or I guess I could, but J would never agree to that. We will find a happy medium. The experts will tell you no more than 2 hours of screen time a day for a 2-year-old. I will stick with this when we're home together. When I'm not home with her, I don't have control over what happens, but I can work to strike the balance as much as possible.
Oh this is such a delicate dance!
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