My kids watch a fair bit of tv, too much sometimes.
There are days when I’m a bit blasé about it and other times when I insist on switching it off and coercing them towards the playroom for some imaginative play.
I know they’ve had too much screen time when crappy behaviours start to creep in: my four-year-old gets arsey every time I ask him a question or my two-year-old will roar ‘DORA!’ on repeat while stomping her foot and glaring at me like a vicious dictator.
The other signs are when our kids stop acting like themselves and start emulating their favourite TV or movie characters.
See that foot stomp I mentioned above? We have Peppa Pig to thank for that.
My four-year-old son will yell “No, back off, human!” while brandishing a ‘sword’ (i.e. banana, toothbrush, whatever he can get his hands on) and we can thank the Transformers for that.
They love these made-up characters so much that they want to embody them, live like them and treat the adults nearby in the same way that their TV heroes treat the ‘bad guys’.
Those are the days when I spend an hour bundling everyone into the car and releasing them into the wilds of a nearby park.
Because really, while I’m ok with some educational TV for a short time, really, I want my kids to grow up being confident about who they are and not getting so caught up in Imagination Land that they end up acting like anyone (or anyTHING) other than themselves.
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