Responsible Parenting

[Gurm]

Nah, it was angry, angry sex. Y'know, the kind where a fight turns into... umm... *ahem* nevermind.

Gpar_

[KRSESQ]

addendum to KvH's rant on Tele tubbies:

I'd like to get my hands on the hell-spawn who dreamed up this drivel. Tele tubbies is deliberately aimed at toddlers from ten months to three years. It doesn't even teach them how to talk in real words. It only teaches them to zone out in front of a TV at an age when direct stimulation and parental involvement is most critical. This is "television as electronic baby-sitter" at its absolute worst. Parents who let their children watch this should be charged with child neglect.

A buddy of mine has a few choice opinions on "The Wiggles" as well.

Kevin

edit Feel free to quote me verbatum on your website.

[Jessterw]

You had me with you until you bashed the poor little sponge. Honestly, are any of the shoes on today any worse than the ones we watched as kids? I think the ones I watched were pretty violent (all things considered), except for maybe Care Bears...

I think the real solution here is to stop worrying so much about what your kids watch on TV and start finding activities for them to do that don't require a TV. That and watch the shows your kids watch (which I know you do Jason, so that's a good thing).

As far as the idea goes, hell, why not. You're usually on-point about these things and you've always seemed like a good father, so I think you could approach it the right way.

[ZokesPro]

What do y'all think of the idea though?

Gurm, I think it's a GREAT idea, seriously.

Barney is Satan!!!

[Umfriend]

On Tele Tubbies:

OK, I think that for now, the accusation of causing drug abuse, homo sexuality and self mutulation are no longer an issue.

Tele tubbies is deliberately aimed at toddlers from ten months to three years. It doesn't even teach them how to talk in real words. It only teaches them to zone out in front of a TV at an age when direct stimulation and parental involvement is most critical. This is "television as electronic baby-sitter" at its absolute worst. Parents who let their children watch this should be charged with child neglect.

Hold it. Using TV as a baby sitter is bad indeed. But that complaint can't be directed at TT, now can it? (what, toddlers needing to go cold turkey to kick off or sumting?) Then language is the only thing that remains. A 10 month old will _not_ learn to speak from TV. That is what parents are for. Otherwise, should I tape it and do a voice over from my friends PhD ("Calculating Atomic Structures using B-Splines", including about 2k lines of FORTRAN) to teach my toddler English, Physic and FORTRAN?? Right. YOU may not like the show, it may be very boring and ful of stupid charachters (Star Wars Episode I ring any bells?), but that is beside the point. A lot of kids _do_ like it and they _do_ learn some things from that show. And don't say TT obstruct the learning of English, if a kid has troubles learning to talk, there may be a lot of problems causing that, but TT will not be one of them. In fact, I can't think of a lot of shows that are really better for the age between 12 and 24 months.

BTW, I do *not* like TT. My kids (have) hardly watch(ed) it, but then, we don't watch the telly a lot anyway.

[Fat Tone]

Gurm

I like your idea, but I don't think you can write an entire book on it (yet). Maybe the first 2 or 3 chapters, but you have a lot more to experience. My eldest is almost 6 and already we've been through way more than we had at 2; day care, first school day, joining clubs, making friends, siblings, letting go a little, trusting a little, giving responsibility...the list is probably endless, and I imagine it will be 10 times longer when we hit the teen years.

So yeah, go for it, but narrow your scope for now.

T.

[Paddy]

woo and i think keeping my fish is difficult.....

[Fat Tone]

Originally posted by Paddy
woo and i think keeping my fish is difficult.....

Well you should have been stricter when they were young

[Gurm]

Ok perhaps I'm overly harsh towards sponge bob. I just think it's idiotic and needlessly violently silly. But then again we DID watch GI Joe when we were kids, and I saw THAT the other day and good lord it was silly.

(Something Awful did a nice writeup review of an episode or two of GI Joe by the way, TERRIFICALLY funny if you've ever seen the show as a kid...)

As for TeleTubbies... you can't say that kids don't learn to talk from TV. They don't learn the basics of language, no. But they do expand their vocabulary. Logan has always picked up words and phrases from Sesame Street and the like, ever since he was about 1.

The issue, I think, is that Teletubbies _IS_ intended to anaesthetise and hypnotise... and "babysit". And it's squarely targeted at the 1-3 set, and has nothing to teach them.

As for the Wiggles... it's stupid, and silly... but there is some good to learn. Cover your mouth when you sneeze. Don't swipe the last cookie, it's bad manners. There's lots of stupidness in there, but there's at least no NEGATIVE message happening, which is something.

Gpar_

[McRhea]

Hey Gurm, what do you think of Bugs Bunny and co. (Merry Melodies)? And not the newer crap, I'm talking about the good stuff from the 40's and 50's.

1.) Do you think it's a good show for children?

2.) Do you consider it a good show, but NOT for children?

I know Merry Melodies has nothing to teach children, and it's very violent, but then again, the original clips were not made for kids to begin with. On that same note, I think SpongeBob is pretty funny and stuff, but I probably wouldn't let my kids watch it. There are some "cartoons" that are made for kids, and some that are clearly not.

I think Spongebob and Merry Melodies fall into that 'Not' category along with Southpark, The Family Guy, Simpsons, etc.

What do you think?

[Jessterw]

The wonderful thing about Merry Melodies, and other cartoons of the day, were that, despite many of them being comically violent, most had references that were obscure or high brow enough that the average child never thought twice about what was being shown or said -- at least with the last few generations, can't really comment on the generation of children of the time.

I certainly never read anything into Bugs' cross-dressing shenanigans as a child. except that maybe he was a mighty odd bunny.

This is far from true, in most cases, today. Most of the comedy in "similar" shows now is purely for shock value. Though this is probably a result of our society in general; we want everything hand fed to us, even our comedy (no thinking involved). *shrug* I'm getting off-topic here.

[Gurm]

Merry Melodies is good clean fun... for kids ABOVE a certain age. Inappropriate, methinks, for 3 year olds. What age IS it appropriate for? Kids develop differently. I was fine with it when I was about 3. Logan... probably not until he's a little older than that. We'll see. I was a mighty precocious 3 year old.

Gpar_

[Jessterw]

So we run into a "one size does not fit all" situation. Kids definately develop at different paces and have personality traits that further makes it hard to say, "this is ok for a 5 yr. old, but not a 3 yr. old."

Takes on a whole new facet for my wife and I, as our oldest (6.5 years) has, as some of you know, Downs Syndrome. So while she's almost 7, she functions at different levels from developmentally from age 3 to 6. It's largely been trial and error on our part (as parents), though we've learned some interesting things. For one our daugther is far more tolerant of scary material than our son (now 4).

We have generally determined what our kids can watch by a trial method. First we watch the show, to see if it's just blatantly out of question. Then we allow the kids to watch an episode or two and see how they react during and after.

I think one of the only shows we've had problems with was teletubbies when our son was still quite young. The problem wasn't with him however, it was with our daughter, who decided the baby-speak on the show was "cute" and insisted on imitating it, to the detriment of her speech (her major delay). Needless to say that show was banned (albeit for more than just that reason).

[Umfriend]

I take everything back. Kill them bastards!

[Gurm]

Yes. Everything is a sliding scale with kids. Some kids are slower or faster than others in a variety of areas.

I mean only to provide basic facts. It's a FACT that Bear in the Big Blue House has really bad undertones of "railroad your parents" going on. How old does your child have to be before he/she picks up on that? It really depends on the kid. Logan... not too much longer. He already tries to manipulate us, mostly unsuccessfully. I cringe to think of him learning to bug us until we give in. Not that I think we will, it'll just be irritating as hell.

Gpar_