When I was a kid, my sister and I had a tower of VHS tapes we watched endlessly. Fast-forward to today, and my children's movie collection is vastly different. It's completely digital and dispersed across services. I wanted to recreate the tangibl...
A 2 year old kid shouldn’t watch 30 minutes of TV a day! Best practice is like 10 kid show when they’re about 4 years…
I agree that kids shouldn’t spend a lot of time behind screens. But I disagree with the fact that 30 mins is too much.
Our oldest son watches TV while drinking milk. That’s either first thing in the morning (while still being a bit sleepy and while we get his younger brother ready) or it’s just before bed (when physically exhausted from playing all day).
I see some benefits to watching movies instead of TV shows. Watching a movie for 30min at a time, trains his ability to focus for longer periods of time. A skill that I highly value in this era of TikTok and 30 second attention spans. He also learns to follow a story, to have empathy with the characters, to see situations in which he hasn’t found himself in yet, and so forth…
And yes, it’s also convenient for us. During those 30min we can get his brother ready and dressed, make lunch, get ready ourselves, etc.
Ultimately, it’s up to each parent to decide for themselves. What is an acceptable amount of screen time, and how do you spend times away from screens. For us, that’s a little bit of TV in the mornings and evenings, and no screens in between.
The older brother could help make lunch. Or dress yourself.If your Benchmark is the short attention span through tiktok etc, I find it very worrying. But OK, that’s just my opinion. I just think it’s a shame for the children for whom it will be normal to watch TV in the morning and evening instead of engaging with them.
30 min in the morning + 30 min in the evening 😳