[moma justice]

ok
so we are tv free have been since way before dd
we do have a dvd player on the computer adn dh and i watch a movie about once a month

someone sent us a short video clip of a cartoon easterbunny dancing and singing for dd's easter surprise
she LOVES it
and would watch it everyday
if the computer is on she is asking for it (she is almost 2)

so now i am trying to decide if we should break down and buy her a kids music video type thing
i think the wiggles are weird, but she propably woudl lvoe them
she loves music and singing and dancing
which we do alot of all day long, live and in person
we make up songs and dance around
we sing songs that we already know and use instuments
daily
i took her to kinder musick last year but the whole thing freaked her out kind of

i will try again this year

but what i am getting at asking is
if you are tv free do you let your dc watch videos, which ones?
how often?
i see this spiraling out of control in our family
i don't want to dight her over tv/video watching

i don't want it to be an issue or an option
i like to spend our time living and our down time really resting etc

BUT
if she loves it, would it hurt?

so i am interested in anyones take on this issue

i know someday we will have to let her have a tv, IF she wants one b/c we want to offer her the respect of letting her choose what seh wants and then figuring it out

but now, she is still too young to ask for a movie specificaly, but yet i am thinking she might enjoy one.

i hate disney.....oh now i am rambling
ok
tell me what you think!

 

[Evergreen]

I do videos, but I wish I had never started it. DD is an addict! She will ask for the same videos over and over. It began with Baby Einsteins when she was two and spiraled out of control. Right now she can sit through entire movies like Mary Poppins and Monsters INC. She will scream, cry and writhe around until she gets one and I feel totally responsible and horrible about it. We have already decided when we move teh TV/VCR/DVDs will not be joining us.

 

[Yooper]

We are TV free and do occasional DVDs. Dd is also almost 2. She also LOVES music and dancing. I HATE kids music and videos. So the compromise is to play music videos we both like. We have rented folk music type videos, Phish shows, Grateful Dead, Beastie Boys (some censoring required there), and musicals like Fiddler on the Roof (dd's fave video of all time), Annie, Guy's and Doll's, West Side story, etc...... She really enjoys it but not enough to request it. We also make a big deal out of "movie night". The only time she gets to watch these videos are during movie night (complete with darkened room and popcorn) and on long (as in 10+hours) car/plane trips. It has never occured to her to ask at other times......yet.

 

[P-chan]

My son does not watch any TV but we do let him watch our home movies, which are on our computer. At least they are commercial-free and I like all of the actors and background music!

From about 18 to 22 months, he was obsessed with "moomies" and if the computer was in sight he asked for them. He got to watch about 15 minutes worth, not more than twice a day. It was a lifesaver if I needed to lie down during my first trimester.

Now, he's not so into them. He'll ask, but only be able to sit through one or two. Part of it is, there are only about 5 of them that he likes, so I think he got too used to them. Which is fine with me.

If you're feeling conflicted on the whole video thing, why not trying to just stick with the dancing bunny clip for a while, as long as that is entertaining to her? She may tire of it and never ask for a movie again. If later you find a video that you think she would enjoy and you would tolerate, then you could introduce a short clip of that. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, but maybe just a very, very little is all she wants.

 

[TiredX2]

We have a weekly movie night (Saturday) where the kids take turns picking a video (full length, animated more often than not) and we get a pizza and all veg. If we are busy or out of town on Saturday we have missed that week.

We also watch videos when someone is sick. Just laying on the couch.

And on a very rare occasion, DD & DS will do one of their Yoga Kids videos(we also have the "On the Ball" one).

 

[MelMel]

we dont have tv but we do movies/videos, but like someone else said, they arent 'kids' type videos. not the patronizing characters and 'you go to the store and there are bedroom sets in that pattern' type of stuff

my dh likes scooby do and so he has a few of those, but thats it (and those are the most requested) if my dd requests to watch a movie, I put in something we both can comprimise on (she does want scooby quite a bit, but I dont like it) she really enjoys chitty chitty bang bang and annie. she likes the singing and dancing. we watch lord of the rings (I skip over the fighting, but she loves the elves and the hobbits...and gandalf) sometimes. for cartoon type stuff, we like charlottes web. we also like princess bride and wallace and gromit.

the best thing about is she isnt sitting in front of it mesmerized all the time. unless scooby is on. some of that kids stuff puts them in a trance, almost. when we watch a musical or a normal movie, she goes and does her own thing, and 'checks in' once in a while (usually for a song). it isnt this crazy all-encompassing thing.

but this doesnt happen SUPER often, anyway..maybe twice a week or so.

 

[urklemama]

I don't object to television, videos, or films in themselves; I object to the cultural attitudes informing those things. So we watch videos that I think are worth are seeing, even if they're just for fun - the baby really likes Gumby - but I would never have a television with any kind of reception in the house, because I think the rabbi who called it an open sewer in your living room had the right idea.

 

[DaisyRose]

I have no objection to visual media period.

I DO object to 1) advertising and 2) being enslaved by TV programming

So, I do (and did) let my dd's watch videos providing they are commercial free (which eliminates a lot of the Disney/character stuff) and provided they were able to understand and operate the remote control.

I wanted, and continue to want, my daughters to see visual media as something they control. If they want to see something again, they rewind. If a certain part is uninteresting, they fast forward. They can eject tapes, push open/close on the DVD, jump chapters, run the DVD frame by frame, the whole gamut of options.

They particularly LOVE watching home videos. And they are starting to film their own. Yup, I let them use the digital still camera, and the digital video camera. So far, so good.

I have done some of the research on the impact of moving visual images, and my own university education is in the filed of representation, so I feel fairly well qualified to make a good decision.

In my opinion, it is the lack of control over the images that causes most of the passivity associated with watching videos.

My solution was not to eliminate the images, but rather to teach my girls that THEY control the images. And I DO censor what comes in the house. I DON'T let them watch just anything.

The few times the girls have watched a television program, they have been frustrated by not being able to ff/rew stop/start the program. I think they are very ACTIVE viewers, and that makes all the difference.

 

[moma justice]

good input!

and i did not even think to mention that we have 100's of music videos on our computer, and she soemtimes will sit with her dad and watch the Talking Heads live clips etc (those are their favorites) but she does not sit for long, they usualy end up dancing! (cute)

so ITA with whoever said not wanting their kids to be able to watch a character on movie and then go to the store and see all the character stuff they can buy....(and wear and eat and play with etc. it is out off the hook! and we don't even buy very many new things or go to stores other than thrift stores)
so no pooh (although i love the original books, we will keep them as books)

infact she just got her first commercial character item last week and it was a hello kitty tooth brush...she just calls it her cat b/c she does not know who hello kitty is.

you would not believe how hard it was to find panties in her small size that did not have a disney character on them.
i was like HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
her privates are the LAST place i am going to let disney use for advertisment space!
YUCK!!!!!!

anyway
i guess we will stick with the bunny for now (and the talking heads) and she does not get the bunny everyday, infact days will go by with out her asking b/c seh only ask if the computer is on, and that is even more reason to keep it off.

and when she is older i can see us doing a family movie night, i loved annie and mary poppins as a girl.....
so when she figures out what she is missing and can verbalize what she wants we will take it from there.

until then we are going to continue to do live entertainment

(however, my mom has a video camera and has filmed dd and her cousins (who she LOVES and they live out of state) so when we get copies of that, i will let her watch those.

 

[mirthfulmum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by urklemama I don't object to television, videos, or films in themselves; I object to the cultural attitudes informing those things. So we watch videos that I think are worth are seeing, even if they're just for fun - the baby really likes Gumby - but I would never have a television with any kind of reception in the house, because I think the rabbi who called it an open sewer in your living room had the right idea.

:
I was gonna post saying almost the exact same thing but urklemama already said it better.

 

[grahamsmom98]

We have been TV reception-free ever since we married 9+ years ago. We DO have VCR and DVD players (including one to use in the car/plane for trips).

Our Ds is 6 1/2 years old and knows that "real" TV exists out there (big treat to see the grandparents and watch Animal Planet or Discovery channels!).

We like the control we have had over the type of entertainment and educational video content that is shown in our home. Even as I type this, ds is watching "Walking With Dinosaurs".

There ARE good videos available, and they do not have to include the Wiggles, Teletubbies or Disney (we have some of the "old" Disney classics but will not watch the new stuff, ie Lion King, Tarzan, etc, as we don't like the toilet humour that has crept into these films).

We never viewed videos that were aimed at a very young child (ie Teletubbies). We feel if you feed a child intelligence, they'll crave intelligence. Give 'em slop, well... Our ds first saw "Walking With DInosaurs" when he was 18 months old. He was hooked on that genre from then on (he'd not seen any TV prior to that).

Our son was at a friend's house and they turned on "Blue's Clues" and ds came over and asked if they could play something instead of watching "That wierd guy with the dog!"

For little munchkins, try "Little Bear" or "Franklin". Nice characters, good morals, loving families (very AP!) and no trash. "Kipper" is sweet, the old "Winnie the Pooh" (again, old classic Disney) not the new computer-generated ones

). Even "Bob the Builder" is nice (shows girls can excell at construction, too!).

Educational: National Geographic (both the classic specials as well as their "Really Wild Animals" series), ANYTHING by David Attenborough (Life of Plants, Life of Mammals, Blue Planet, Life of Birds, Life On Earth, Wild Europe, etc).

We have an extensive video library. LOTS of old movies. Ds loves Hitchcock films (we have all of them)! We have most of the Masterpiece Theater series. Pretty much a wide variety, but most follow the no bad language rules for us (hell, damn and other minor swearing okay, but we won't have any that say f*** in the house).

So far, our son hasn't shown the constant need for passive entertainment that so many children do. We play with him a lot. We're homeschooling, so there is a lot of interaction there, as well. Even on long trips, when we present him with a new DVD for the car player (it's portable, not built-in), he'll watch it for awhile, but then shut it off so he can look at the scenery or talk with us or look at a book (

).

We DO have family movie night every Friday or Saturday night. Snuggle in bed together and watch one of our stash, or a rented film. Last week, we watched "Master & Commander" again. The next day we went to the library and checked-out books on that time period. Dh has the complete Patrick O'Brian series, and ds has asked us to start reading those to him each night (we read to ds for an hour before bed everynight)!

 

[shantimama]

We haev watched videos only for seven years now and have no regrets. We don't miss comercial/cable TV one bit and we are glad our kids don't live with it.

Little Bear is nice for little ones - my 8 year old will still occasionally watch LB with his little sister. Fred Penner is nice too. As they have goten older we have added a few more videos to our collection - The Velveteen Rabbit, the Secret Garden, Madeleine, Little Women, Black Beauty, Narnia, the Lorax, the Magic Schoolbus.

 

[Oh the Irony]

do you consider yourself tv free if you do videos?? the title struck me as odd, because i would not call that tv free.

 

[moma justice]

well
that is a good question and i guess a matter of opinion.

we do not own a tv

we do have a dvd player on our computer (which i already explained)

i know a lot of moms (inreal life and here) who have mentioned that they do not let their kids watch tv but they do let them watch dvd's or videos.

and i am guessing that there is a broad range of reasoning behind this choice, and you can probably guess why just as well as i can.

my dh and i do not have a tv (and have not for about 5 years now...and dd is only 1.5 years old) b/c we did not want to let it suck our lives away

if we have one we will be tempted to watch it more often than we should (and i don't think more than an hour of tv a week is good for us...ITA with the past poster who called it an open sewer in your living room)

and we try to use our down time to read, craft, yoga, talk, be outside, talk with neighbors etc...i think tv prevents that .

now, we (dh and I) do end up watching about one dvd every 2 weeks (sometimes once a week) that i get at the library.

i like being able to have that set time of entertainment and then have it be over.
and since we do not have anyone to baby sit dd for any length of time, it is nice to feel like we are doing some kind of "date" thing every now and again....having an almost 2 year old cuts down on the plays and shows you can attend.

but that is US
now for dd we are feeling out the question of do we want to let her watch videos, and if we do when, how often, and WHAT

we are trying to come to our own answers about that

so i wanted some input from other mothers who do not let their kids watch tv.

the kind of thinking behind the opinions i was seeking had to be from moms who had already decided that TV was not a valid way to parent/entertain a child.
b/c that is my thinking.

so that is how i came to the title: tv free moms who do videos,
b/c i think there is a difference

granted there are probably some moms somewhere who let their kids only watch videos, but let them watch them all day and do not care which ones they are but are still not watching TV

but i thought for the most part, the moms who would respond to such a title were so careful and selective with their childrens' sources of entertainment b/c they had made the clear choice to be without tv, as have we.

and we did end up renting the jungle book and watching it together as a family for a movie night (with snacks)

she loved the songs and the special something new quality, but did not enjoy/pay attention to the movie itself.
and the next day she was acting out some of the most emotional lines taht the man cub was saying to the snake.

so we do not think that we will rent anything else for her for a while

we will come back to this one.