I realized this week my three-year-old watches way too much television. It's my fault, of course, as are most things she does, since I set the boundaries and let her know what's OK and what's not. Like how it's OK to pet the cat but not maul the cat. How it's OK to help make dinner but not to try to do it herself. How it's OK to ask to call Baba but not to dial the phone randomly. Limits are important and make a lot of sense, but limits aren't something I've really enforced with TV. I've had limits on what she can watch - only Treehouse TV or approved videos rated G - but I've put no limits on the amount of time spent in front of the tube.
Perhaps it's because I was raised on TV. There was rarely a time in my home we didn't have the TV on, whether or not we were watching it. It was background noise during craft time, while making and eating dinner and even while in the bath. My stepdad had a sound system rigged up from the TV right into the bathroom, which I always thought was weird but made for never missing the dialogue in my favourite shows.
Once I was on my own I took that one step further and rigged up the mini-TV with DVD player in the bathroom so I could watch movies while soaking. Yes, TV has been my friend over the years, a way to escape and change my focus.
Of course when my daughter was born my husband and I stopped watching anything we were interested in on TV (until after 8 p.m.) and watched endless hours of Baby Einstein videos, convinced it would make our baby incredibly intelligent. Those videos made way for Treehouse TV when she got a little older, and now I know all of the characters on shows like Babar, The Backyardigans, Rollie Pollie Ollie and, of course, Dora the Explorer.
Her Treehouse TV days start at breakfast while she eats her cereal watching Pokoyo and Toopy and Bino. Then it's off to daycare where, thankfully, no TV can be found.
She's home again by 5:30 p.m. and the TV goes on as soon as we enter the room. I start making dinner while she plays and watches her shows and we all pull up our TV trays to eat dinner in front of the tube once Dad gets home.
It's sick really. We don't even have a decent conversation or sit at the table like a real family. Realizing the error of our ways we decided to turn the TV off this week while having dinner. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a big step for me. It wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be, and my daughter, though upset at first, enjoyed the attention we gave her. She was distracted at times, wondering what she might be missing on TV, which simply reinforced in my mind the need to turn the damn thing off.
I realized my daughter watches about four hours of TV a day. The Canadian Pediatric Society suggests children aged two to five should watch no more than one hour of TV a day. Wow, I suck. TV watching isn't much of a problem in the summer when we spend most of our days out hiking or playing at the beach. It's not even a big deal during the winter when it's not raining, but on those days when it's too wet or cold to venture outside, I admit the TV is our main source of entertainment.
I started thinking about the effects of television on my toddler this week and what it's teaching her. Is it showing her that things must change every few minutes to be exciting? Is it showing her how great life could be if everything happened the way you dreamed it? Is it teaching her Mommy doesn't have time to play but television will always be there for her?
I'm not sure what the answers to these questions are, but I know it's not TV's job to raise my daughter. I'm pretty sure it's mine.
So it's time to change our ways and give the TV a rest. We'll aim for that one-hour marker and see what happens. Maybe something great.
