Thursday, August 16, 2007

To watch or not to watch?

A mom in the forum, whom I've been emailing to said that after hearing from Jocelyn, the Shichida principal, that watching TV will lower IQ, she has stopped letting her daughter watch DVDs. She asked me for my views.

To sum up my views, I am neutral. Athena grew up with no Shichida, she grew up with Sesame Street everyday until she started school and one educational DVD per day, she had her contact with mummy not just the tube. And whenever I play the videos or watch Sesame Street, I'm always sitting next to her telling things (providing stereo effect for her with my irritating voice)And she's okay.
I will continue the same with Aricia, and she'll have the added advantage now that I'm learning more about the right brain thingy.
(When I mention about me letting my children watch educational video, I won't 100% rely on it. But it beats letting my child watch soap dramas right?)

In my view, watching a little won't kill or cause autism like some researchers will say. Infact, anyone will agree with me different researchers will have different point of view and whatever the rests of their research is done, will be based on that foundation beliefs. So... in other words, if your mindset now is "No! cannot watch TV" and here I am writing that I'm a neutral person, you'll be critising me "ai yoh..that Lily ah...harming her children..."
I will let them watch a little so that I can recharge awhile. The children will also have more variety of entertainment what?! Don't tell me you're going to spend every second doing things with your child alone meh? Be more realistic, we need the rest also what! My children are not addicted to TV, like one of my girlfriend's daughter is.
I do spend time with my children in their playtime. And if I'm the type of mother who thinks that "I'll dump my child infront of the TV while I do housework", then I wouldn't have said that taking care of a child is more tiring than working when I had one child. I was on 'action' all the time! If I decided to dump Aricia infront of the TV, I wouldn't have hired KZ!

Some interesting links here :
Can watching too much TV make a child autistic
Too much TV?

What other alternatives out there :
Prime time fun


It goes the same for the discussion of not preparing things on powerpoint. I have no hard rules on this at all, of course my best answer will be "to follow what your child wants". I'm lucky both my children wants everything : flashcards, videos and powerpoint. So I'll capture them in different ways, so that they'll not bore. Like I did mention to Mel, preparing powerpoint also take time & love from the mummy.

Different researchers say different things, different people say good about their products and criticise others. But as I've put it to Mel "we the consumers get the best of both worlds."

So what's your view on this?

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