TV or no TV?

I have to be 100% completely honest with you.

 

Before having a child I was like “my child is not watching TV!”

Now that I have a child I am like “daddy needs some personal time, go watch TV” or “daddy needs to sleep-in, here watch a show on the iPhone.”

That’s the reality of my personal situation.  I swore I wouldn't let my child watch TV or play with mind-numbing electronics till for like ever. 

But then two things happened.

1) I came to the realization that some of the TV shows/Videos available for my daughter to watch aren't the     same kind of cartoons I grew up on.

And

2)  Daddy needed to sleep-in.  I mean I really needed to sleep in. 

When I look back on it the first TV/Video our daughter watched was “The Happiest Baby on the Block” DVD (http://www.happiestbaby.com/), technically we were watching it and she was being swaddled over and over again till we got it right.  But her tiny retina was exposed to the harmful TV radiation, so it counts.

The DVD was indispensable to us, and taught us some amazing techniques which helped us in those first scary months of being a parent. I recommend it to any new parent.  You can buy it on their website (or you can just get if free from your local library.)  

This DVD became my go to gift for new parents.

Her first real TV/Video she watched was another product I recommend to EVERY parent.   The ‘PRESCHOOL PREP’ collection of DVD’s (http://www.preschoolprepco.com ), Meet the Colors, Numbers, Letters & Shapes.  We got the whole set and my daughter started watching them and we saw results almost immediately. 

By 2 she was being carried in my arms heading towards the local ‘Wal-Mart’, and I heard her saying “W”, “A”, “L”.   She got all her shapes, letters, numbers and colors by the time she was 2 ½ and could recognize and say all of them. 

So much faster and better than ONLY doing flashcards.    

Warning for parents: It is annoying for you to listen to, I suggest reading in the next room when they watch it.  It works on repetitive learning.  ‘a’.... ‘a’..... ‘a’....

She has graduated onto the ‘Meet the Sight Words” & “Phonics” DVD’s and it has really helped with her reading, so much so that at age 4 she is reading at a grade 1 level.  (purchase from same website, or free from local library).

The other videos I let her watch and I highly recommend are the ‘Leapfrog’ Movies. (http://shop.leapfrog.com/leapfrog/jump/Learning-DVDs/category/cat80050;jsessionid=618C68D98C536EFC09CCB77F314E08D8?q_docSort=&addFacet=%3A) They are more ‘movie’ style of videos, with actual stories and characters.  

We have them all.

I will tell you about other helpful TV/Video’s I have used for everything from Potty Training - Learning French in a future post.

In the meantime I am going to go to iTunes and get some videos for my daughter to watch, because tomorrow morning daddy feels a sleep-in coming on!