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The movies visible in the photos in the article, and their runtimes in minutes, are: 94 The Good Dinosaur 92 Trolls 98 Wall-E 88 The Lion King 10
by tzs 2y ago
The movies visible in the photos in the article, and their runtimes in minutes, are:
94 The Good Dinosaur
92 Trolls
98 Wall-E
88 The Lion King
103 Moana
81 Toy Story
91 Trolls World Tour
95 Inside Out
103 Frozen II
95 A Bug's Life
> We have two boys, and the eldest is permitted a 30-minute TV session in the morning and another in the evening.
So...if one of them wants to watch The Lion King or Toy Story they have to split it over at least 3 viewing sessions split over at least 2 days? And for anything else on that list they need to split it over at least 4 viewing sessions?
That seems overly restrictive. Yes, limiting kid's TV time is probably a good idea, but would it really hurt to have some flexibility so that they can finish a movie in one session? Maybe let them bank sessions, so they can say skip morning TV for 3 days, and apply that time to the 4th day's evening to get a slot for a whole movie.
- cortesoft 2y agoEvery parent is required to say they only allow very limited screen time even if secretly they all allow quite a bit more.
- xafke 2y agoLol, kind of true! We stick to the 2x30 minutes rule for 90% of the time but we do make occasional exceptions like when they're ill. Might change when they get older though.
- vitro 2y agoWell, the nice thing about having borders is that you can allow those borders to disappear every now and then. Feels like something special for the kid!
- Freak_NL 2y agoPlenty of parents do use screens responsibly. My five year old can watch one episode of whichever series he is watching at the moment after school (currently Hilda, which Netflix really should push harder than some of the crap that gets suggested). In the weekends sometimes we allow for one film instead. It's not a challenge to keep a limit on screen time at this age.
- Aeolun 2y ago> It's not a challenge to keep a limit on screen time at this age. Good for you. It is, however, a challenge for us. If all your friends have the same rules as you, then great. If all your friends have no rules at all, you are a tyrant, and your child will be at his friends places as much as possible.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ShakataGaNai 2y agoFTA > Between certain hours, we allow them to watch TV. They can watch any movie they like. They can even switch between movies. But the timeframe is fixed. They can watch a good chunk of one movie, or they can watch a tiny bit of 10 different movies. It's completely up to them.
- fragmede 2y agoEh it'll probably be a reason for therapy when they're older, but the skill to say "okay, time for bed" and stop watching in the middle of something is an underrated skill.
- manmal 2y agoIMO it’s at least as important to be satisfied after one thing has ended, and not start the next thing.
- shannifin 2y agoMay depend on the kids' ages and what sort of viewer they are. As a young kid (like around age 6 and below) watching a movie episodically would've been fine for me. Time was different; I had no sense of a story arc spanning more than an hour.
- kmarc 2y ago1 hour of TV time PER DAY for small kids is considered restrictive? I would have thought it's much less. What would be an equivalent restriction on the phone/tablet/more actively engaging devices?
- sgt 2y agoMy 3 year old gets 15 minutes (!) max per day. Only on weekdays. Weekends no screens.
- sgu999 2y agoThat's closer to how I'd like to handle it when my 3m old is old enough. But are you able to properly restrict your screen time as well? Seems complicated to tell a kid they can't do something their parents are doing multiple hours a day.
- sgt 2y agoYes, we don't tend to be on our phones near him. Not just to set a good example, but I've found that being glued to your phone isn't really a great thing anyway. For doing real work I sit in my home office with the door closed.
- Freak_NL 2y agoWe don't do this either (I hardly look at the thing at home), but just a look at the other parents bringing in their preschoolers at school is depressing. Half of them have their phone out, and the number of parents you see pushing a pram or stroller with a phone in front of them is absurd. We are a minority.
- sgt 2y agoIt is truly bizarre, I agree! Everything to chase a bit of dopamine. And if you peer over and look at what they're browsing, it's mostly junk, social media videos or just mindless scrolling. It's actually healthier for the brain to be bored in such moments.
- t0mas88 2y agoMy 4 year old naturally does this anyway, and I can imagine many kids do. We don't have a set amount of allowed TV time for her, but she typically watches around 15-20 minutes of TV and then gets up and does something else. The only real rule we have around it is that TV (unlike music) is not a background sound. If you're done watching something, you have to turn it off, not just let it play forever.
- xafke 2y agoAuthor here (surreal to see my post at the top of HN!) My kids are 3 and 2, and they don't watch TV like adults. They watch a bit of movie, get up, walk around, do something else, come back, and watch a bit of another movie or even switch to a TV show. It's weird! I like your idea about flexibility, but they're too young right now. Maybe we'll introduce your "bank" concept when they get older or increase the "TV budget". But for now we stick to 2x 30 minutes.
- oezi 2y agoI have learned that doing just weekends for TV is much better for small kids so they don't get used to TV watching.
- dudul 2y agoEven for not so small kids. With my 7 and 9 yo we do one ~30/40min session during the weekend, and a family movie on the 1st weekend of the month. No TV or screen time outside of these. I can't imagine having a 3yo watching TV 1 hour a day, especially the movies shown on this video. That being said, to focus on the technical project, that's very cool!
- Salgat 2y agoWe only do TV on the weekends (Miss Rachel mostly, sometimes a movie), but 1 hour a day seems like nothing considering they're in daycare learning and playing for 8+ hours among the many other things they're doing throughout the day. For me the issue is when it becomes a dependency for them.
- peterleiser 2y agoYes, we also switched to TV only on weekends.
- Freak_NL 2y ago> […] but they're too young right now. Indeed they are. I have a five year old who is now old enough to choose his own films and series from a selection curated by us. A system like this would be fine for children of his age. But 2 and 3? They are too young to choose their own media at all. Not because they can't, but because they can't judge the impact. For toddlers you really want to be the one in control about what they watch (and that horrible Bing can die in a tragic bunny bonfire). The Lion King, Wall-E? That's just overloading them at that age (and both are rated 6+ in the Netherlands). You can start with those at 5 or so depending on the child, or later if you've noticed them reacting too intensely to films rated 6+. For now? Stick with shorts suitable for their age, and move on to films (like Ghibli's Ponyo) at 4 or 5 as a special treat. Autonomy is all fine and well, but screens have an enormous impact on developing children. This is a really cool project, but you might want to reflect on how their brains are developing and what you as a parent can do to guide them.
- sulandor 2y agowe handle it similar; <30min/session, <1h/day, <2h/week there is a round robin process for who gets to pick from the catalogue and if there is no amicable consensus, we split or override. 30mins is about the attention span of a kid and you can see them get anxious and distracted after that, most of the time.