Naughty Nanna.......but doing the best I can!

When my daughter was little we didn't have any qualms about letting her watch children's videos like Postman Pat and Fireman Sam and any suitable Children's TV. This was also useful as the worst punishment for being naughty or uncooperative was a video ban! It obviously didn't do her any harm as she has an Master of Studies from Oxford University now!!

Your house your rules Katek .
Sounds like you are doing a good job to me. When I look after little ones I stick the TV on when I am exhausted or need to make lunch ect .
If I am being helpful enough to babysit then I do what suits me , if I am up to it we do crafts , painting or some other fun thing but if not the TV goes on !

Lots of messages coming across from everyone on this thread. The main one I am getting is that TV for children is great if you choose and view selectively. A bit like TV for adults really, there's lots of things I won't watch. As a gran who has some care of the children every day whilst parents are at work I am grateful for the box in the corner. Particularly when we first get in from a mile walk home from school. I am filled with dread when my daughter has banned watching TV for misbehaviour. We got around that one by putting on a story CD!

I think too many of us, particularly teachers, tend to relate everything to academic achievement. Moderate TV viewing in the early years has little bearing either way, and personally I'd rather my child had a soul as well as a brain.

willsmadnan, my children never watched 'Sesame Street' either unless they saw it at a childminders or my mother's house. I was answering a point someone else was making assuming I had disapproved of it - which I don't. As for 'Thomas the Tank Engine' my husband is a train enthusiast, read them both the stories and took them to see 'Stepney' at the Bluebell Line in Sussex so the kids adored 'Thomas'.

As for 'keep your hair on', it wasn't meant to be 'patronising'. I was trying to deflect in a mild way some of the ire I was raising by my first set of suggestions as to how a child might be kept amused apart from watching 'Cash in the Attic'.

Katek, who started the thread, did not explain at first how she chose DVDs but just said she felt 'guilty' because, in her words, she "I ha[d] allowed dgs to watch more tv than he's normally permitted." It seemed to me that there are many ways of using TV, radio, DVDs and CDs to amuse a poorly child without having to feel guilty.

Someone sent me a private message warning me that it is very easy to ruffle feathers on 'Gransnet' and I have found out the hard way!

I am much more relaxed than I seem to have come across about all these matters but I stick to my point that if you ignore the 'literacy window' when children are absorbing language, grammar and vocabulary at a rate of knots then you are handing the children of parents who do a massive advantage.

Parents who do what?

Spot on Lillie!

Teacher - I do not think that feathers are ruffled - it is simply that some posters hold very different views from you.

Your final paragraph is a case in point. The concept of a literacy window is contentious. Children in many European countries and in other education systems do not start formal learning till they are 6 and they are well-educated people when they emerge from the system - and they are particularly better at modern languages than their British counterparts.

Small children absorb language from the adults around them - either in the flesh or on a reasonable TV programme.

And as for "handing the children of parents who do a massive advantage" - this statement to me encapsulates all that is wrong with our current education system and highlights where my views strongly part company from yours. It is not a race or a competition with children jostling for advantage. I was never interested in whether my children were doing better than others - I simply wanted to know that they were being helped to learn (at an appropriate age) at their own rate. Other children or their parents were (and are) an irrelevance.

The recent awareness of mental health problems in children is not unrelated, in my view, to a system that is putting schoolchildren and their teachers under stress.

Totally agree luckygirl and * lillie* and everyone else with a balanced view. While I'm glad mine went on to have good careers, with some taking the more "scenic " route to get there I'm actually much prouder that they have grown up to be responsible, compassionate and well rounded adults who are much more confident than I ever was. We didn't have huge amounts of money but they had plenty of fun, including tv!

I don't think feathers are ruffled either Teacher11

I just think that perhaps you didn't read the OP properly (I am guilty of that too sometimes)

then we sit down and play until lunchtime. He's quite grizzly
There are times and there are times, and I don't think now is the right time to be firm with an unwell, grumpy, missing his mum, tired 2 year old

I don't suppose for one minute she allowed him to watch a Quentin Tarantino film.
You're doing just fine katek

I too fumed at the reference to 'handing parents that do a massive advantage'. Who's racing? You?
Education is as broad as it's long, [Teacher] - you should know that.

puts on Quentin Tarantino DVD for DGD aged two

It reminds me of the time I was asked to look after a new neighbour's child in an emergency one evening - he was about 9. I didn't know him, didn't know how long the parents would be (hours in fact) and asked him if he'd like to play some games or watch tv. He asked if he could watch 'Full Metal Jacket' because it was on that night.
'OK' said I, 'is that a nice film'? 'We could watch it together'.
Luckily grownup DS was home, snorted in derision and said 'he's trying it on, Mum, it's really violent'.
[whatdidIknow]

Teacher, I just wanted to show some solidarity and say that as a fellow teacher, I have winced for you as several people have reacted very strongly to your first post on this thread. There is an element on GN that do seem to enjoy having a go at a teacher!

I agree with others that perhaps you interpreted the OP in a certain way, but I know you wouldn't have meant to 'lecture' and in professional terms, I agree with everything you say about language acquisition. I share your passion about children gaining good literacy skills. Sadly, within the profession, we see children that lack them daily and we realise how limiting this is for them.

I'm sorry you have taken such a battering. I think there is a cumulative and collective 'ouch' factor when several people post the same type of criticism - it can feel like being ganged up on even though I am sure there is no intention for that to be the case.

I hope you will keep posting,
Imp. x

Oh Imperfect, I have barely got beyond your first sentence. So not true!!
There are so many teachers/ex-teachers/heads of department/head teachers/advisory teachers/even, for all I know OFSTED inspectors on GN it can be like the Staffroom at coffee time break!!
I hope Teacher11 recognises that "teacher-bashing" is really not an issue

Well Alea, maybe you are right in saying it wasn't the actual 'teacher' thing, but I simply write from my own experience. I got some very unkind 'teacher' comments about an early post that I made with genuinely good intentions - ironically about posting with sensitivity - there seemed to be a definite element of Let's have a go at the teacher ' from some who responded.

I felt T's post was a bit put of place as a response to the OP here and evidently stated very much from a professional angle which clearly annoyed some, but even so, I don't think it warranted the sharpness in some of the responses.

Trying to move on, rather than simply opening another can of worms ...perhaps the difficulty - and certainly what prompted my post this a.m. lies here: when someone is criticised and that criticism is repeated / echoed by several subsequent posters, there can be a cumulative strength - and hurtfulness- for the one on the receiving end. Putting the best possible shine on it, perhaps this is simply an accident of the way these forums work, but at times it is wince-making.

I don't see some of the opinions as teacher bashing, I see it as challenging someone's views. Nothing wrong in that.
Maybe it could make people re think their views. I don't necessarily mean this subject.

He he!! The trouble with teachers is that they have to be strong-willed and forceful in order to look after their challenging charges! I guess this often spills out into their daily lives so they are sometimes given a Miss Trunchbull-like label.
In my school I allow every teacher to use their own methods and to do things their way while conforming to a common ethos. A bit like on GN, - have your own opinions, express them, but keep things polite and friendly. Exactly, petra, no bashing either way!

There is an element on GN that do seem to enjoy having a go at a teacher

Well, that remark in itself is enough to make hackles rise - there is an element indeed!
In fact, well done, Imperfect - QED

The point of the OP was to seek reassurance that the original poster wasn't being a bad or neglectful granny in allowing a fractious 2 year old to watch tv for once, not to receive a lecture on where she was going wrong and what she should be doing.
In fact, Teacher missed the whole point of the OP.

Many of us may not be or may not have been teachers but I, for one, have teachers in the family and everyone has their own experience of teachers - not just on GN!

Neither have a couple of sharp responses (I hope mine were not sharp) deterred teacher from trying to justify herself in telling katek where she has gone wrong and how she should have been amusing a sick grandchild.

I do not agree about the teacher bashing. I am a school governor and chair of the staffing committee - I admire them immensely and do all I can to support them in their difficult job. None of the teachers I work with share the views that teacher has expressed. They are all desperate to break away from the strangle hold of tests and government edicts, and to give the children a balanced, rounded education.

Can anyone explain why my one year old grandchild isn't allowed to watch any tv? I find it very extreme. [daren't ask the parents...]

There is an element on GN that do seem to enjoy having a go at a teacher

Let's not start that!! A person can sometimes see offence where none is intended. It is possible to disagree with a post without having a go at a whole group. For all I know Teacher11 could be a brain surgeon, nail technician or market gardener.

There are some people in RL who like to stress "what" they are (or what their "other half" is "oh hubby's a doctor/judge/banker dontcha know" rather than WHO they are.
One of the points of a "username" is anonymity but also individuality as we speak as ourselves, not representatives of a profession.

Oh ALEA that rings so many bells here, many people who work in the main Institutions see themselve totally by their chosen career.
How many times have I been asked on a first meeting,'what do you do' or 'what does your Husband do', even which department are you in, what grade etc.
When they are asked about themselves you get their CV.

I know people here who when you ask them where they have visited, what there social life is, have no anwser and go back to talking about work, the Stagieres in the Parliament are the worse especially the ones affiliated to Political parties.
Ok rant over.

Thumbs up for the last two posts from me.

Just to point out there are many teachers on GN who actually disagree with teachers point of view.

Of course anya but that is presumably precisely because they disagree with the opinions, not because they are "teacher bashing"!!

My younger DD learned all about where babies come from from watching Schools programmes aimed at junior school children, when she was three. Did a good job they did. She used to come and tell me all about it.