Videos/Cable tv

[*bejeweled*]

Hi there,
Right now my 7 yo DD is into Discovery, Animal Planet and Disney Channel.

However, I worry about her being exposed to certain cable shows when she is a young teen. Shows like The Bad Girls Club, music videos featuring women in degrading ways, some shows on MTV and VH1, etc. DH and I don't watch these shows at all. But I know one day she will discover these channels and I wonder how I'll draw the line. I don't want to totally shelter her.

How do you handle what your teen watches?

I'm editing to add that she does not have a tv in her room, but she watches tv and plays on the computer in our den/office.

[MusicianDad]

We spoke to DD honestly about the kinds of TV shows we felt were appropriate and the kind we felt weren't. We explained that if she is unsure of the show she can come and ask us. And we explained that we expect her to be responsible with what she watches on TV, but if we find out she has been watching shows we don't aprove of then she won't be allowed to watch TV alone until we know we can trust her.

[lorijds]

We've had cable for a long, long time for the internet services, but never really watch TV. The only stuff we allowed our kids to watch was discovery, animal planet, and PBS.

Now that they are 11 and 14, they really are totally not into those stereotypical, boring shows. The youngest watches some Spongebob and The Adventures of FlapJack on Hulu/Youtube, and the oldest sometimes watches Scrubs, SNL, The Dailey Show, and the Colbert Report on Hulu. In general, they really only like the more intelligently written, tongue in cheek, wacky sort of shows. They hate watching anything on television because of all the stupid commercials and advertisements for other shows. Lately as a family we've all started watching old Battlestar Galactica and Scrubs episodes from Netflix. Honestly, though, we all watch less than 4 hours of television a week, each.

I think only allowing intelligent, well written shows in the past has spoiled them for stupid crap now. I'm not worried about it, because they really seem totally uninterested in those type of shows. They appear to instinctively dislike shows that are degrading to women, that are blatantly stupid and appear to want to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and that are insulting to women or to thinking persons.

Occasionally they will watch something that I don't approve of. They have limited time allowed on the TV and computers (all of which are in common areas of the house, not in their bedrooms), and they quickly decide not to waste their time on such shows. I give my opinion occasionally, and once I straight up told older dd that she wasn't allowed to watch something (TrueBlood). I simply told her it had a lot of full on sex, and I just didn't feel it was appropriate, particularly in full view of her younger sister watching it. I asked her if she could wait a few years, or if she felt like she just really needed to watch it now. She said she could wait, so it wasn't a head butting issue.

[nd_deadhead]

We were very careful about what our children watched, and we explained to them exactly why we felt it important to restrict their viewing.

As they got older (9 or 10), they would police themselves, and switch away from anything they felt was inappropriate (yep, I was surprised!) But apparently our reasoning made sense to them.

Gradually we started watching more "adult" stuff, but we watched together, and talked about why people spoke or acted a certain way. By then we felt pertty comfortable with their ability to make good choices, and choose appropriate role models.

Until recently I blocked any adult content on our DVR. Our kids have never complained about the restrictions.

[*bejeweled*]

Thanks for the responses.