The Television Debate

We've all heard how important it is to limit the amount of television that our children (and we ourselves) watch. Some reports say they shouldn't watch any TV at all before the age of two, others say it should be limited to under an hour. I'm not sure how much credit to put in all these scientific studies because there's always another one coming along to contradict the first one. I do know however, that is isn't good for her to constantly be sitting still staring at a screen. I also know from experience that Bean learns well and mimics what she sees on TV. Because of this I am very careful what she can see on TV. Hubby and I don't watch any of our shows when the kids are in the room and I don't allow her to watch the action cartoons and things like that. By further enforcing what she's seen on TV she's already learned her letters, numbers, and things like that.

So the question then is what is the correct balance of TV or is there one? Is the knowledge she's gaining from watching television okay as long as she's not watching hour upon hour of it and still getting some activity with regular toys and her imagination and things?

Regardless of whether or some television is okay, the amount of time I am currently using it for a babysitter is not okay. Some days are good. She watches a show in the morning, one as I'm fixing lunch and then we may watch a show or two as a family in the evenings. This would equal two hours of television time a day. Some days she gets way more. There have been times I am just not ready to get up and I let her watch TV until my younger kid wakes up which can sometimes amount to an hour or more of television - just in the morning!

Based on this I believe my first goal is to make every day a good television day. Television will be limited to 2 hours a day. If Bean gets up early I will let her get a book and crawl in bed with me instead of turning the TV on to allow me to sleep longer. The only thing left to determine is... if the TV is on one of my shows and she isn't paying attention to it, does it still count?