One of our readers discussed her problem with us –

“My daughter is now 22 months old she loves to watch tv especially advertisements, I switch Cartoon TV for her to watch while eating or while I finish my household chores. would this make her addicted to TV, does it effect in other way besides the fact that her eyeballs are really soft and should not strain much, I do take time to play with her also and talk to her about things around, stand in the balcony and watch the birds, trees etc. also she has lots of toys to play with.”

 

This is a very common situation when the meal time & TV timings overlap. Sometimes parents become so helpless that they do almost anything to get some food into the kid’s mouth like using a high chair in the dining room & don’t let them get off until they are finished with the food.

 

Parents should keep on changing the meals so that it seems interesting. now, Regarding TV, I agree that cigarette advertisements, sexually charged shows, .etc. leave an impact on the children’s mind. As their mind is very tender, violence & dirty politics of saas bahu serials will cause damage. Instead of watching TV, I would suggest make them listen good music.

 

Despite all odds you can’t make TV – the proxy for your kid’s mealtime menace. This is a conscious decision and an effort. You have to workout a lot & there is lot of learning in the process both for the parent & the child. Vocabulary, language, creative thinking and also good EQ development are to name a few.

 

Apart from the above points, there are hundreds of families in India who celebrate TV turnoff weeks. If you feel this idea is interesting & you support the views about adverse affects of TV on children then the action plan you can design is celebrate TV turnoff week.

 

Everything has a good side and a bad side to it. While you and your kid can learn a lot from TV, parents need to be more strict about the programmes their children should watch & overall how much time should be alloted for it. Also it should not hamper other creative & personality building activities.