POLL: How many hours of TV do your kids watch a day?

[cornerstonemom]

We only watch tv after 4. Then it is off for the dinner hour and then we usually watch a Netflix movie in the evening. :lurk5:

[westcoastmom]

We have a tv that never gets turned on. I know people who limit tv time, but the limit is screen time (ie includes video games, computer etc)

[Rosie_0801]

I voted other. No tv but more video time than I'm willing to admit to.

 

Rosie- who will wean the family off the tv drug when she no longer needs it for mental health purposes...

[elise1mds]

I went with other. Mine watch about 3 or 4 hours per week. Less than an hour a day, but more than no tv ever.

 

That's about what mine get. We'll have several days where they don't watch any and then maybe a couple of movies or a few shows here and there.

[Guest sarathan]

Wow, thanks for all your responses! :D

 

I should have added an option for "Less than 1 hour" in the poll, but it seems polls can't be edited.

 

Anyway, I like hearing what other families do in regards to tv. It's something I really struggle with.... my boys LOVE to watch TV. Seriously, they would watch all. day. long. if I let them. It's an ongoing battle *sigh*.

[Melissa in Australia]

less than 1 hour a day. we aren't big on TV we only have 4 channels, and they mostly have soapes. so why bother.

if you asked me how many hours of computer do they play it is a different story!

[Pamela H in Texas]

Anyway, I like hearing what other families do in regards to tv. It's something I really struggle with.... my boys LOVE to watch TV. Seriously, they would watch all. day. long. if I let them. It's an ongoing battle *sigh*.

 

I answered "no limit" as my children are way too old to have mommy micromanaging them but....

 

IF my kids had pushed it, the limit would have been an hour per day when they were your children's ages. That was what my mom did and it made sense to me. When my kids were your kids' ages, they didn't watch an hour per day and that would have been the limit I set had I needed to.

 

Do they not have enough to do? Are there health problems that prevent them from doing enough other things? Do you have issues that make tv an inviting option? Are those issues fixable or something y'all will just have to deal with?

 

You don't owe ME any answers, of course. I'm simply thinking how you might be able to fix the problem. I can only imagine the battle will become worse as they age.

[Peela]

I have recently pulled right back to less than daily TV. They will watch a movie or two each week and some shows on Discovery or something like that, but no longer are they watching it every day. I let it creep up.

Not having the TV on, and limiting computer time too, means we interact more, play games together, and read in the evenings.

[CalicoKat]

30 min of electronic time M-F is allowed after schoolwork has been done (w/ corrections). Sat & Sun are Wii and Playstation days after weekly chores are done. They get an hour each but we tend to let them have more, say another hour more, as long as they're getting along.

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

We watch a lot of Noggin and a little Disney Channel. I more limit what they watch, not how much they watch. I see educational value in most of their shows. My little one will either watch watch TV or play quietly while I'm doing school with her sister. (She's more of an afternoon/evening learner!) I work at home, and if I have more work to do than what can be done before they wake up or after supper, they will either play nicely or I will put the TV on for them. Some days they are just in the mood to fight, so a nice show or two will settle them down enough for me to work for an hour or so. They like to watch things like Magic School Bus, Little Bear, Imagination Movers, Super Why, and How It's Made. They also have the Leap Frog videos that they like to watch from time to time. Oh, and we get Bill Nye and Jeff Corwin from the library at times. In the winter, of course, they will watch a little bit more, as there's not much to do. Most of their neighborhood friends don't come around in the winter. And I also have someone to babysit them while I'm working in the summer, so she takes them outside in the morning to swing.

[LaxMom]

I voted "other", as well. The TV is rarely on before the children go to bed, for live broadcast, recorded, or Netflix. Perhaps once or twice a month, they will watch a couple of shows or a movie.

 

In my house, it is much easier to keep it off than to try and limit it to a certain time/show/whatever per day. A few years ago, I woke up and realized the TV was on all.day.long. - literally from when the first person got up, until the last person went to bed at night. Scaling back just resulted in fighting, sneaking in to turn it on, etc. so I outlawed TV completely.

 

Now, they're just used to it not being on. On the occasions when they do watch, it's less of a struggle to turn it off. A lot of that is because they end up watching the late-afternoon kids show(s) on PBS, and they're not into BBC World News when their show is over, or they watch a movie on DVD, so there's a definite end.

 

I totally feel your struggle. That's what worked for us, for what it's worth. :001_smile:

[chai]

I went with other. Mine watch about 3 or 4 hours per week. Less than an hour a day, but more than no tv ever.

 

:iagree: I had to vote other also. My dd averages less than an hour a day.

[WTMindy]

Other! I would say they watch about 2 hours per week. We watch American Idol and then they watch a couple of episodes of Giligan's Island at some point in the week. :-)

[mellifera]

They don't watch T.V. because we can't pull in any stations here. That said, they do get screen time. We watch the occasional video and they play on the computer and play station. They also like to watch the washer and dryer in action.:tongue_smilie::lol: