I get really frustrated when I leave my children with other people and they are constantly sitting my children down in front of the TV as soon as I leave. \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0can recite to me the entire plot lines of Disney movies I have never shown her (sometimes even the tiniest details that I only know because I saw the movie 100 times growing up).\u00a0 If I can go 5 days a week, by myself, 10+ hours a day without turning to TV entertainment, anyone who has my children for a few hours should be able to play\/care for them\u00a0 easily without needing it either.\u00a0 I know Honeybun\u00a0asks for TV when I\u2019m gone but it\u2019s not really that hard to say \u201cno\u201d to her.\u00a0 If I remind her she doesn\u2019t need to watch TV while I\u2019m gone, she\u2019ll tell the caregiver when we see them and she is also usually very amenable to doing something else, so long as the adult is engaged with her.<\/p>\n
TV is what I call my \u201cmommy magic\u201d.\u00a0 I rarely let my girls watch \u201ckids\u201d shows.\u00a0 When we do watch TV, it is usually travel and history shows about places we\u2019ve been and even those are reserved for small doses between nap time and dinner making time and not every day.\u00a0 I also sometimes let Sugarplum watch dance videos in the morning (she often requests to see mommy dancing) but she doesn\u2019t watch very long.\u00a0 I don\u2019t limit TV because I\u2019m firmly against watching in general (though I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessary and provides no developmental value even though many children\u2019s programs are marketed as such), it\u2019s because of the magical powers TV possesses.<\/p>\n
For me, Kid\u2019s TV is a magical thing that sucks my children in and causes them to become silent statutes as long as the show is on.\u00a0 On a daily basis, I try to avoid such brain sucking power BUT there are rare times (like once every few months rare) when I really need to get things done and I need my children to sit quietly and out of trouble for a length of time. \u00a0TV provides that time for me and I know the more often they are exposed to Kid\u2019s TV the less magical it will be and then I will have NOTHING to rely on for my necessary quiet time until they are big enough for video games!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I get really frustrated when I leave my children with other people and they are constantly sitting my children down in front of the TV as soon as I leave. \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0can recite to me the entire plot lines of Disney movies I have never shown her (sometimes even the tiniest details that I only know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10058,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/10058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}