How long do you let your small kids stay infront of the TV?

It depends what kind of child you want him to grow up to be. If you want someone that is not creative, easily bored, sho0rt span of attention and flies o0ff the handle very easily then let him watch lots of tv. If you want a well adjusted creative chilod able to entertasin himself with a good range of vocabulary and fun to be with then strictly limit his tv to no more than 30 mins per day and just before bed-time. TV is dangerous for everyone and particularly fo0r children. Remember that most of the time when you turn the TV on you turn your brain off. this is dangerous for kids because they otherwise develop skills of creativity and communication but cannot do that when all kinds of exciting things are thrown at them in an instant without having to move. Once addicted to TV ,it is very difficult to get them off. Don't use it as a babysitter, sit with them and discuss the program. Much better to get them interested in building bricks or other creative age appropriate games and let them play safely with that whilst you are busy.

I don't know what is best, but I will occassionally do the same thing. We usually watch TV for an hour or so together. If I have to take a break and do something, like dishes, I usually have my daughter by my side playing with the fridget magnents. However, if she doesn't want to do that, I will turn the tv on for a short amount of time. My daughter is 4 1/2 now, but this is what we have done for a while now. When we do watch television, I try to keep it at something edudcational, like Dora. Lol, in fact my daughter and I have started to learn a little bit of Spanish together, since she liked learning it through watching Dora.

I sat my kids in front of the tv. allready when they were babies.The tv. helped them go to sleep. When they got older they watch cartoons and the learning station. I did not have any problems with them watching tv at all.

now that my oldest is in school we dont watch too much tv. my yougest doesnt really like to watch tv. so we watch about 30 min before nap time and thats about it until later in the evening when they watch maybe an hour or so. my youngest loves to do crafts (shes 3) and so i let her color, put stuff together (she loves paper dolls) and what have you. not that i'm against tv (as my kids are watching now) but since we are actually getting rid of our cable (too expensive) i wanted to lessen the amount of time they/we spend in front of it. i will miss dora, diego, wonderpets and the like.. but its okay!!! i dont think letting him watch some tv is bad for him, my girls picked up spanish and things about animals from the cartoons they watched!!!

When my kids are still young I watched TV with them.I don't leave them alone because I don't want them to watch violent shows.I'm surprised my grand children was left alone watching cartoons although funny they enjoy watching,but they tend to imitate what they see pounding heads was just ordinary to them.I'm sad to see them left alone in front of the tv because their parents were busy,and I'm not always there to guide them.It's not really good for them.

My two year old usually only has about 3 hours or so of TV a day and then he walks over by himself and shuts the TV off. I don't think this is too much because he is also usually doing something else, like building towers with his blocks or running in circles. I think he just glances at it and watches the singing. If you are worried about the amount of time spent in front of the TV, you might try sitting him in front of more educational programs or shutting the TV off all together and just leaving a CD play in the room where he is. Also, remember that sometimes those chores can wait until your little one is in bed.

The t.v tends to run all day in our house and I don't worry about how much time the children are sitting in front of it because I always put on educational shows throughout the day for the younger children and at night it is for the older children or for us . I always thought that too much t.v would affect a child so when my older children were smaller they hardly watched t.v at all . Then as they grew older I started to babysit and noticed that other parents didn't seem to mind if there children watched t.v all day or not , but the other thing I noticed was that there were a lot of children's programs dedicated to actually teaching your children and how much smarter these children seemed to be from when my children were younger . Years later I had two more little one's who are now five and three and I allow them to watch as much t.v as they want but it has to be educational and am amazed at how much my five year old picked up just from t.v . She is already capable of reading little books , she knows all her alphabet , numbers , colors and not only in English but in English , Spanish and French , she is able to add and subtract and is always quick to amaze anyone who comes in our house with stuff like , did you know there are constalation in the sky and they are made up of the stars . She truely is an incredibly smart child and although I have spent a great deal of time teaching her things , I can't take all the credit as I realize that she did pick up a lot from television . Now I know many would disagree with me on this because that was how I used to feel as well , but for myself I have never regretted my decison to allow my children to watch t.v whenever they felt like it and will continue to allow them to watch t.v when they are in the mood .

my 5yr-old daughter stays in front of the tv for almost 5hrs straight everyday.

Children generally like to watch cartoon channels. They somehow develop a big liking for cartoon programs. The sketches and pictures and animation attract them too much that they almost become addict to watching such programs. It is not advisable to prevent them from watching TV. They can be allowed to watch TV after they complete their homework. Then there is no harm.

My daughter is 19 months old. She watched television on and off all day. She probably only watches about an hour a day. I cannot leave her in the room watching television because she is constantly climbing on things and getting into things. She does watch videos down here with me while I am on the computer though. Although most of the time she is not actually watching it.

Hi there, I have a two year old as well, and I tell you she spent a lot of times watching TV. When she wakes up she will play with her toys, and around 9AM she will start watching untill noon. Then after lunch we try to read books or do some activities, more on academics. A couple of hours max ! then she plays again, but sometimes if she sees a DVD that she likes she watch it for many hours. Im not soo worried, because I just make sure that the programmes that she watched are educational or does not contain any foul languages. And she does not really like sitting in front of the TV all through out. she watched and play at the same time sometimes !!!

At least up to 2 hrs the most.. But, my 2 year old loves to play more than she watches T.V. She also likes to get into many things around the house as well.

It's great that you are concern about that. I have three young kids and letting them watch too much tv isn't good as you know. SOmetimes I am busy doing something else and I have to sometimes push them to go and play and forget the tv. For a long while, my girls don't want to go out walking with me but for yesterday, my two girls went out on a very short walk with me before their dad get both of them. I was mad at my hon and decided to walk somewhat more with my youngest in my arms. I am also concern that my two oldest are into cookies, candies and stuff like that. I have told their grandma to stop doing that and such. Their grandma cooled down with it but it still makes me mad that she sometimes give in to their wanting some very sweet stuff where it is empty calories and no nutritional value especially since most of the snacks nowadays aren't very good for kids and anybody to consume.

This subject will have many views and oppionions. I personaly leave my TV on most of the day. However, my children watch for about an hour then go play, then will watch for a few minutes and then go play... LOL so they are never glued to the TV. Also we raise goats so they are in and out of the house often. I don't judge people on the TV viewer-ship. What does bother me is when parents let their children run amuck around the neighborhood. As long as you know the type of programs the child is watching it is OK. I put on PBS or one of the children's movies they love to whatch. NO Hanna Montana etc... On Saturdays Tom & Jerry and Christian based cartoons.

hi there! i don't actually let my kid stay infront of TV for so long cause i know it is not good for them to expose under radiation ., so as much as possible i always control her watching ., like i just told her to watch for specific time ., and she doesn't complain., Ü