Kids TV - Relief, Pain and Mind Drain

Kids TV is the bane of my life. It’s a fantastic entity in that it can distract the bigger child on one of her more trying days; although I put a large emphasis on the word ‘can.’ The various shows, cartoons and music videos have had a fantastic impact on her speech too, alongside her mother, who's read copious amounts of books to her as she's grown up. She’d imitate animal sounds in the early stages of her development, and she’d begin to repeat the words from the nursery rhymes found on YouTube. We now find her walking through the house, incessantly singing without the need for a prompt, although if she really gets into it, she usually asks us to turn her chosen melody on.

There’s not a great deal that I find to be more monotonous, more irritating, though, than Kids TV; and that’s not just because I’m often forced to switch off what I am watching to accommodate. She’ll be getting a little temperamental and I’ll know what’s coming; “put on one of her programs” my wife will say, exasperated and usually holding her hand to her forehead. From there, the little one will sit for an average of around five minutes watching on. From Peppa Pig to Bing, from Coco Melon to any from a catalogue of nursery rhymes, each one is as grating as the next. What’s worse, it will generally be on our screens for a good 45 minutes after she’s given up. Although turn off that which she’s barely concentrating on, and you’ll soon know about it!

It’s not just the experiencing of Kids TV that’s the issue. The biggest problem comes when the songs make their way into my head, and I’ll be walking around the house humming Mary Had a Little Lamb or singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat! Then there’s the presenters, actors or performers, who have to be some of the strangest people on TV (or in the world!). I know children are the audience, but nothing has made me cringe more (and my wife has made me watch Celebs go Dating!). Then there’s the fictional characters, few of which would make great influences on our children. Peppa Pig is a spoilt brat, George Pig spends most of his time crying, Bing is a wet lettuce, while Coco can be a nasty piece of work; and don’t get me started on the parents!

Then there’s her tendency as a two-year-old (some would say it is their right) to change her mind at the drop of her hat, sometimes without even telling us. She’ll ask for Bing, but what she means is Number Blocks, and God help us if we don’t figure that out! Once we’ve found what she desires most, it’s unlikely to last long, and before we know it she’ll be at one of our ankles, demanding a change (switch, complain, repeat). We’ve even bought her a tablet to give ourselves a little break (and to try to shut her up at restaurants, on which you’ll find more details here), to help wrestle back the box at tea time and to help her settle when it’s time for bed. However things can get worse when she is using the device, as she has the ability to change it herself but will get annoyed when ads come on or she clicks on the wrong video.

What I really can't wait for, he says through gritted teeth, is when our littlest girl is old enough to have her own views, and they begin to fight about what to watch at any given moment; I can see that being the most exhilarating of times in our parenthood journey.

By Calum Dewsbury