One topic parents are fiercely divided over these days is definitely children’s media consumption. Should a child be allowed to watch cartoons on TV or on other devices such as a laptop, a phone and the like?
Yes, I am one of those bad mothers who let their child watch cartoons.
But don’t judge too quickly.
Everything in moderation, including media consumption.
First of all, we don’t have a TV at home and we don’t plan to get one. Marko and I think it’s a device that needlessly eats up your time and helps family members NOT communicate with each other.
Admit it: the first thing you do when you get up in the morning or come back home is turn on the TV. It doesn’t matter whether anyone is watching, what matters is that it’s on and that it’s there.
We didn’t want that. Ever since we moved in together, there has always been music playing in our flat, but from the radio. That way you get a pleasant atmosphere at home, you can pick up some useful information if you focus on listening, and it doesn’t demand your attention. But it’s there. And the videos we actually want to watch, we watch online on the laptop.
Cartoon time is family time.
Since I deal with media from a theoretical angle, but also use them in everyday life, I think that forbidding my child to use them would be hypocritical. Our general stance on this, and on many other questions about raising our child, is:
If you don’t want your child to do something, don’t do it yourself.
It also works the other way round: if you want your child to do something, do it yourself too. Because children learn from us, and, I swear, we learn from them as well.
The trick is to keep watching screens to a minimum and to make it actually worthwhile.
First of all, I myself love watching cartoons. It’s a special treat for us when the three of us go to the city library and pick a cartoon that even I haven’t seen or one I particularly love, and of course a film or two for Marko and me. That way we’ve given ourselves two family rituals: choosing and watching cartoons. It’s a special kind of quality time we spend together. But it’s not the only one, because we don’t do it every day, let alone all day.
It’s very important to me that cartoons are not a substitute for some other activity, because they’re not meant to be. And no, media are not the babysitter I don’t have. This means Sofia doesn’t watch cartoons whenever mum wants a rest or to paint her nails, so the child has to sit still instead of running around the flat and scattering toys. As I said, cartoons are a kind of entertainment we usually enjoy together.
Although, honestly, there are moments when Sofia is so upset that there is no other way to get her attention so she stops crying. It really doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Usually it’s when I pick her up from nursery and she didn’t sleep enough beforehand, and then nothing but being carried or watching cartoons on the phone can calm her down.
We don’t have a car, so we get home from nursery on foot, by bike or by bus. And when we take the bus, it’s really exhausting to carry a child on one arm, push the pushchair with the other and squeeze onto the bus. So, excuse me, but I’d rather my child sat calmly in her pushchair for those ten minutes watching her favourite cartoon on my phone (thank you, Amazon, for existing) than be in a bad mood. Nobody likes their child screaming, first of all because they love their child and don’t like seeing them unhappy, and second, the looks other people give you in those moments are never pleasant.
As far as I’m concerned, this story could go on forever. Media have both a positive and a negative influence, especially on children. But that’s a topic for another text.
This is about the simple fact that we live in a time that is definitely different from the time we grew up in, which in turn was different from the time our parents grew up in, and so on. So please don’t fall for those platitudes like “back when we were raised, we didn’t have this or that”. Well, we didn’t, so GET OVER IT, our children have it and live with it. And what our grandchildren will have, we can’t even dream of.
The point is to keep an eye on what your child watches and for how long, not to ban it completely. Because if you forbid it to your child, then don’t watch anything yourself either, simple as that. Please don’t be hypocritical, because children understand everything, even if they can’t always put it into words. Or go ahead: your child, your way of parenting, your business.
Just please don’t breathe fire at those of us who give our children a little fun on the screens of modern technology.
Warmly,
S-Mama
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