My daughter watched loads of TV when she was a child, recovering from major surgery (several times) and in pain. For her it was snuggle time with me, and we watched all sorts of things. She tells me that's where her interest in history started: there was a lovely programme about the Great Fire of London we recorded for her and she got hooked on finding out about it which helped while away otherwise tedious long recovery days when she couldn't go out (her leg was in a huge Ilizarov frame). We also watched Disney cartoon videos together and an animal cartoon series about a forest, the name of which eludes me now. We talked, we sometimes stitched, talked about our favourite places in the Yorkshire Dales which is somewhere she loved to visit, and that helped her cope with her anxiety and depression. I wanted home to be a haven, exploring things which interested and inspired her. She also wrote a great deal, though I couldn't always make out what she'd written! Two decades later, after a long haul emotionally and physically, she did reasonably well at school, despite serious illness, depression and pain, got a degree against all the odds and later an M.A in magazine journalism - and is now self-employed writing, which she loves, and has a little daughter of her own. She probably spent less time in school than most of her peers, and we managed as best we could, but television and videos played an important part in her life and she's none the worse for that. Who gives a stuff how early a child learns to read, as long as they do, and that they learn to love books and approach life with excitement, curiosity, kindness and compassion? They learn that kindness and compassion from their families first and foremost and I'd bet that's what they'd remember more than the fact that they were taught their tables a year earlier than their friends.
