I did a little personal experience with my oldest son Pnut who is three years old and his daily intake of television. I noticed my son had started to become too aggressive and would throw fits at the littlest things. He was just plain angry all the time. I started cutting television out of his daily activities to see if it was the trigger for his rage. For a week straight he watched no television and played occasional educational games on the computer. After a week I noticed his behavior had changed tremendously. He no longer walked around the house with a crunchy look on his face, he began playing well with his little brother, and was overall really nice when you would speak to him.

Now we don’t watch anything bad in this house, we are strictly a PBS household. He would watch shows like Curious George, Super Why, Word World, and all the other favorite PBS shows. I wanted to see if television really was his source of “anger” so the following week I allowed him to watch his favorite show “Super Why” and immediately he reverted back to his mean self. I don’t think it is the show itself that is causing the behavior changes but I do think that the commercials they show before and after might have a thing or two to do with it. Super Why has helped Pnut tremendously so I can’t be hard on them but something about television watching is triggering my son to act out and I don’t like it.

So for now we are turning off the tube. As a “special treat” for being good he can watch Super Why once a week but anything more than that I am really hesitant to allow. To occupy his time he can practice writing his letters during craft time, play education games on the computer, or have some good ol’ play time with his little brother with the bazillion toys that we own.

How much television do you allow your child to watch?
Do you think television can trigger a child’s behavior and to act out?
What do you think about my decision?

ShareThis