There is no getting away from the fact that television pays a big role in the modern world and is frankly inescapable. While I don’t intend on allowing Georgie to become glued to the tv for hours on end as she gets older, I do think that a little bit of age appropriate entertainment is perfectly acceptable! She does enjoy most of the programs that are on cbeebies, as well as loving any type of musical tv show (Got to Dance was a big hit in particular as it was very bright, colourful & musical!).
One decision we have made, however, is that any children we have will not be allowed a tv in their room until they are teenagers. We want to be able to monitor and limit tv use (and gaming too), and this seems to be the most sensible way to do this. Instead of putting a tv in her room, Georgie has an old iMac which means that she can watch DVDs or listen to music, as well as playing basic games and being able to email (a parentally controlled list of) people.
Since I first got pregnant, James & I have been building up a collection of our childhood favourites on DVD so that “our child is brought up properly”! This includes such gems as Tom & Jerry, Mr Men, Charlie Chalk, Spot & Pingu, among others… As well as the obligatory (and rather more modern) Raa Raa the Noisy Lion DVD we gave her for her birthday!
As she gets older we also want to introduce her to the magical land of Narnia (the BBC adaptation is unparalleled) and to the Borrowers too. She already enjoys the classic Thomas the Tank Engine series on Netflix so I think I will need to track down the DVD box set of those for her room sometime.
What tv favourites from your childhood do you want to pass onto your kids?
Oon we’ve done the same thing and built up a collection of DVDs from our childhood.
It includes Annie the original version, The Little Rascals, Care Bears and loads of Disney Classics such as the Little Mermaid and Beauty and The Beast.
It’s lovely being able to watch the magic explode in their eyes the same way it did to us all those years ago!!
Oh wow yeah you have to have Disney in there! We are building up our collection of Disney films on bluray, but trying to get the ones with DVDs included in the box so that Georgie will be able to watch them in her room. We are big Disney fans – our first dance was the Beauty and the Beast, although I did cave to my husband's demand that it be the Celine Dion version not the teapot!
We watched Little Mermaid this week and everytime they started singing she would pay attention to the screen and dance along, so cute!