TV, or not TV?

So, since Natalie was born, I've been hesitant about letting her watch TV. Lucky for me she doesn't seem to have any great inclination to watch, until recently anyway.

I turned on PBS a few times between when Natalie was, say, 10 months old and 18 months old. I didn't really dig the programming, not even Sesame Street, which I remember having enjoyed somewhat as a kid. I let her watch Clifford, which seemed a little more playful and less preachy or teachy than some of the other shows. Natalie never really got interested to the point where she'd ask me to turn it on, or ask for a particular show. She'd watch a few minutes, if that, then wander off to do something else.

Some of our well-meaning relatives sent us a Baby Einstein video, Baby Mozart or something like that. I remembered that a friends' mom had said it captivated her daughter and she could actually get a few minutes to herself when she put it on. Half hoping for the same magic, I popped it into the DVD player. Nah, not interesting enough for Natters, who was probably 15 months old at the time. Might've worked on a younger baby.

Nurtureshock discusses Baby Einstein and how there's little to no evidence to support their claims to build brighter babies. Several other books, including Bright from the Start warn that TV for infants and toddlers may actually hinder neural development. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against TV for kids under 2.

Okay, so parking your baby or toddler in front of the TV every day for children's programming is probably a bad idea; lots of overstimulating colors, sounds and ads, ads, ads. But I'm hoping occasional viewings of ad-free documentaries aren't too terrible. Because, as it turns out, Natalieloves them.

"Planet Earth" and "Babies" are the two documentaries she has seen. Neither was made for kids. We have to skip parts of both that we fear might be too violent and scary. She doesn't need to see a shark devour a sweet, lovable dolphin. Nor does she need to get any ideas from an older brother smacking his baby brother with a scarf. Sure, these probably aren't the first or worst images that come to mind with the word
"violence". There's plenty of bad stuff in pretty much all TV formats, yes, including kids' programming. But we're in dicey territory letting her watch TV at all.

We have a running dialogue with Natalie about what happens to all four babies throughout "Babies", her current favorite. "She's with her Daddy. Daddy's giving her a bottle", "he stepped on the goat", etc. It might be a stretch to claim that watching it has taught her anything--I think she had this vocabulary anyway--but I hope it's at least somewhat innocuous. Because it's nice to have a calm, engaged Natalie for a few minutes while I type a blog post, get the dishes done, or fold some laundry. Or change Rachel's diaper.

Oh, and I don't let Natalie watch TV every day. Sometimes we go a week or two without any TV at all. Rob and I don't watch TV, and we don't keep it on in the background.

That will change with the arrival of football season. Having grown up with three brothers and no sisters, and in a sports-watching family, football on TV is familiar and comforting to me. It's a rite of autumn that I treasure, and so does my husband. Natalie might have seen more football than anything else on TV in her lifetime--she's been alive through two football seasons so far. She was saying "football!" this past season, so she is definitely somewhat familiar with it already. Granted, we'd probably all be better off if we were outside playing football during those hours. But it's something of a family tradition that we treasure, so it's here to stay, vice or no.