Another kids and TV question....
Do you think that small children (10 and under) should have television sets in the bedrooms?

I got my first TV when I like 6....and my twins were about that age when they got theirs.

i wasnt til a teenager when i got my first tv.

but lots of my nieces an nephews have tv in their bed rooms, all under age of 10. i see nothing wrong wit it

No big deal with it, in my opinion. Yet it shouldn't be a free for all, with unlimited TV watching.

I didn't get a TV in my room until I was... 18, i think? Maybe 21? I can't remember now. I don't have a problem with parents choosing not to allow young children to have a TV in their room. I worked with a kid last year who watches TV until all hours of the night and comes to school EXHAUSTED. There's no control whatsoever and if he's not watching TV, he's playing really violent video games - ones rated M and R. The grade 7's go on a camping trip every year and his parents said he has trouble sleeping at night and would a staff member be available to sit up with him all night and talk to him. Problem is, when this kid doesn't get sleep, he's a miserable, rotten little cretin, and his parents don't seem to have made the connection between his late night habits and his behaviour, and don't listen when professionals tell them that's the problem. He's one of the reasons why I would hesitate to put a TV in a young kid's room.

I think I got a TV in my room for the first time when I was 9...of course there wasn't as much crap on back then, if I was sneaking out of bed to watch late at night when I should've been sleeping, it was usually reruns on Nick @ Nite or something like that. Today...I hate to think what a 9 year old would be running across at midnight going through the channels.

Eh. I'm not so much against a parent saying no to this. My daughter has a television set in her room, but didn't get one until she was about twelve. If she had had one at six, she would have tried to watch it past her bedtime.

Yeah - I think that's the key, Chris - your daughter was older. With young kids, they're more likely to be up late watching TV. I think 12 is a good age to allow a child to have a TV in his or her own room - not sure I'd allow all the gaming systems, though - lol!

TSJFan4Ever wrote:

Yeah - I think that's the key, Chris - your daughter was older. With young kids, they're more likely to be up late watching TV. I think 12 is a good age to allow a child to have a TV in his or her own room - not sure I'd allow all the gaming systems, though - lol!

Definitely not. I'm not big on video games, computer games sure, ones you have to hook up to the TV, no, however I say if you're going to get one, THAT's going to stay in the living room at the TV set everybody watches, not up in Junior's bedroom.

Well, as long as parents know that the video games are not graphic and not age appropriate, I don't see the big difference in limiting tv time in bedroom for that or programming.

Except I think video games are a bit more addictive, you get to the 9th level of something and die, you want to make the 10th level so you start all over again.

Supernova wrote:

Except I think video games are a bit more addictive, you get to the 9th level of something and die, you want to make the 10th level so you start all over again.

But if a parent is limiting the time the tv is on, it is no difference if it is a game or a show.

Yeah but that's the thing, in the living room you can monitor that better than in their bedroom when they're supposed to be asleep but maybe they just have the sound off so nobody hears them. I don't know, seems if you try that with the living room you get the whole house up, but in the privacy of your own room, that seems to be a different story.

Supernova wrote:

Yeah but that's the thing, in the living room you can monitor that better than in their bedroom when they're supposed to be asleep but maybe they just have the sound off so nobody hears them. I don't know, seems if you try that with the living room you get the whole house up, but in the privacy of your own room, that seems to be a different story.

Maybe. But I go in and check what he is doing and I limit time alone in his room as I do TV time.

Video game ratings/restrictions always seemed a little too anal to me.