Screen Time With Toddlers | Is it Okay or Not?
For parents out there, have you felt this way when you let your children watch some videos in Youtube?
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash Edited in Canva
Sure enough, there are a ton of studies, blog posts and even commentary from other people about how bad screentime is to our little one and I think an additional reminder on how it affects your child isn't helpful anymore.
I am a silent reader in a parent support group for fathers DadbudPH and one of the questions being asked by some of the fathers is about screentime and if it is okay for their baby to watch Songs for Littles - Toddler Learning Videos aka Ms. Rachel to some and the feedback that was given is outstanding!
Prior to becoming a parent, my wife and I discussed not having screentime for our child but in this day of age, it is hard! Entertaining a kid is not an easy task especially if you are doing some other stuff, parents without any helper can relate to this as the baby will be requiring a lot of attention from parents.
Since I am working full time and April is doing some house chores, we resort to letting our kid watch some videos on Youtube. Before you raise an eyebrow, we do not use our smartphones that much but rather we use my desktop so there are times wherein I am not able to log in to Hive especially morning this is the main perpetrator. Now going back we let our child watch the following.
We let Dyn-Dyn watch it for quite some time before she hit 1 year old because of the colorful stuff that it shows. I myself love the musicality of the videos but there is some stuff that I do not like as Ava's kinda a bitch spoiled brat.
From the makers of Sesame Street we also let our child watch some videos. Compared to Dave and Ava this one is quite better as the songs and actions are child friendly plus there are puppets
Dyn-Dyn is responding to sounds and the animation but at some point, we noticed that she isn't used to talking not babbling. We are both quiet in the household and if compared to the usual noisy house wherein there are multiple people in our case we are just either doing our task of caring for our child. Plus, I am a keyboard warrior I am not used to talking at all.
We are comforted by some of our friends ( same age and almost same situation ) that we should be trusting our child more and she will be speaking fluently soon but the older generation didn't even spare us and mentioned that our kid might be deaf and mute.
It was relayed information to me by my wife and as a response, I told her to block all of the naysayers because they do not help at all. They are only seeing our child in the videos uploaded by April so if they don't see anything they cannot give any remarks at all.
So going back to Ms. Rachel also tried it and compare Dyn-Dyn's response is way better!
Surprisingly, she is more talkative than she was before. Aside from the dad's community approval I also saw some good feedback on how the videos of Ms. Rachel helped their child in speaking.
Here are some stuff that we love about using Ms. Rachel's video
Learning is Fun with Music!
The videos of Ms. Rachel are catered to small kids, it isn't loud compared to Cocomelon, Dave and Ava, and other kids' youtube video that is rampant nowadays. Also, there are close shots wherein she shows in the video how to pronounce words, it doesn't feel that they are being thought of as something as it is presented musically too. Even us oldies tend to learn if they are in music format. If you will compare, you can easily memorize songs rather than the whole text document.
Interactive and Makes You Participate!
During times that we are watching the video, we as a parent mimic what Ms. Rachel is doing, I can now do the dance Wind the bobbin up with my eyes closed! We make sure that if there are motions and gestures we try to do what is shown in that way Dyn-Dyn can also copy. At times when I am writing a blog post, I just play the video in the background and we try to practice the hand movements.
The Downside:
I think the only downside that I am seeing is her familiarity with the English language at a young age. I mean, it is good to speak and understand English but we would not want her to become one of the kids who are having a hard time speaking in Tagalog. If possible the only time that we use English is when I take in some phone calls during meetings and some stuff relating to work but for our daily interaction, it should be in Tagalog.
Understanding the world around us and within us. Reshared😎📝💚
Okay naman itong mga pinanonood mo sakanya sir interactive to sa mga bata. Wag lang daw talaga ung coco melon. Pero ung anak ko naman dati nung mga 1-2 years old eh baby tv muna then switch na ko sa High 5 and ung Blues Clues.
Jeez Cocomelon is a no-no for us and even some of the poorly created videos in Youtube just to milk the child market. High 5 I love it! Might be letting Dyn-dyn watch it as for Blues Clues.... I might if it's Steve hahah biased.
Yeah!! Steve burns bias here hohoho I missing the old days.. 🤩😭
My cousin who's gonna be 2 years this october is being entertained with the help of one of those videos in youtube and it really help her to speak up. Even if she's that young she can already speak some english words.
that's for her entertainment but not in her conversation to us..just like you po we used tagalog and our mother tongue Iloco.
Some parents here are struggling already because their child is pure english in talking.huhu. nanonosebleed na sila eh in the first place sinanay nila. Kaya di rin ok minsan.
Yeah the struggle is real, we have seen that and even my nieces and nephews are English speaking kiddos. It is hard to communicate with them! I mean I can speak and write English but I have certain times wherein I just want to relax and not think of words to say. HAHAH.
haha there's nothing better than having peace of mind. Nakakapressure din kaya lalo na pag sa public sa magsasalit eh nakakaakward 😅. Tas titingin sayo lahat ng tao.
My greetigs @tpkidkai.
My wife and I had 4 boys, almost one after the other. We agreed that whatever words they were going to learn were those we spoke, not somebody elses' words. Though times may be different now, one of the thinsg we learnt from our pediatric doctor was to keep an eye on them, but to let them do as they pleased since they were learning to live in an adults' world.
In regard to watching videos I would say that every thing in excess would not necessarily be the best. Generations born in the 50s or 60s are probably the ones who have invented most of the things we use nowadays. I would say that in their childhood they had to find, invent things to enjoy with, and that developed their intelligence.
My counsel would be to let your child watch videos, but for certain periods, then let him/her try to find what to enjoy with. Also let your child develop the language he/she would encounter in the outside world, because his/her native language would be learnt at home,.
I hope my humble words would serve as a guide for the future to come.
Warm regards
Hello ogutierrez thank you for the guide and for leaving a comment to my blog post. I appreciate your kind words.
I agree with this, this is ideal for us since our generation doesn't have cellphones as rampant as now. We didn't even have electricity back then thus we are forced to do some imagination training in that way we can enjoy playing and even talk with some of our friends.
Right now, as times have changed avoiding screen time will be quite hard, and YES definitely we will have it under moderation for sure.
Secondary language such as English will be thought I guess when she is at school. The problem is we are living in the rural side wherein most of the old relatives are not proficient in speaking or understanding English, we wouldn't want the old ones to feel that they cannot make connections especially since English is somehow still treated as the language for the elite in the province.
My greetings @tpkidkai.
Thanks for taking time to have a look at may comments.
I am sure that as parents, you would recieve the guide, inspiration about how to raise her to become a girl, a woman of good.
I feel that when the time comes she would speak and make herself understood to every one in the family because they would be there for her.
May God be with you all the time so that you would may have joy all the way along.
Take care