November 2, 2009 – 5:54 PM
Nielsen reported last week that children ages 2 to 5 spent nearly 25 hours a week watching television, the highest figure on record. They spent an additional seven weekly hours watching DVDs, playing video games, and watching TiVo-style time-shifted television. [From Drilling Down - Children Ages 2 to 5 Watch More TV Than Ever - NYTimes.com ]
…We also depend on it periodically to keep the kids busy for a few minutes while we do a few emails or finish making dinner. … We can wean the kids off it, pointing them to their pile of unused toys, and maybe getting down on the floor with them to reaquaint them with Legos, Barbies, and train tracks.
We all need a break now and then and TV isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is important to know how to control the television, without letting it, and your kids, control you. Here are a few tips to help make it easier for you to keep the kids playing with their toys and reading books rather than watching mind-numbing TV for hours. … Rather than allowing them to watch one hour per week, they will get a better idea that watching TV is a privilege rather than an expected dose.
I spoke with the talent agency involved and she told me that this is going to be a documentary about stay at home dads with a bit of a reality TV angle, but tastefully done. I promised I’d pass on the info: Are you a Stay at Home Dad or know one? Looking for STAY AT HOME DADS in Big Cites (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, New York City, Chicago) Working or Not Working.
November 22, 2008 – 11:01 PM
While the study can’t definitively say it’s TV that makes people unhappy (versus “unhappy people watch a lot of TV), I think we all know all know it’s likely the former. … Whether it’s too much steak, vodka, gambling, drugs, or just lying around the beach for years (AKA “sloth,” another deadly sin), too much of a good thing is, well, too much of a good thing. … But reading this article, which can only confirm your suspicions, might help give me the strength to take the remote control in my hand and press OFF… well, maybe after just one more episode of the Backyardigans.
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