WELCOME SPRING!

I was in awe and proud of what I saw in my two year old's class at her day care. The picture shown below is a result of the collaborative output of her classmates, herself and most of all, her talented and creative teachers. There was also a short write-up by her teachers that I am posting here as written by them. - Anita

April Showers Bring May Flowers - By Sandra & Nanette

This week we talked about April showers and how they bring May flowers.

Our project were a three day process:

On Day One we observed the rain clouds and made our own clouds by mixing white paint, black paint and glue.

On Day Two we observed the rain drops and made rain with paint and glitter.

On Day Three we talked about how flowers need the rain and made our own beautiful flowers out of our hands.

These projects exposed the children to pre-science concepts, and allowed them to express themselves creatively.
And, it was also a lot of fun!

Why Do Children Watch TV?

This post was contributed in response to my blog post 'Kids & TV Watching'. - Sriram

- Contributed by Jayashree. Jayashree is the mother of two children, ages 5 and 3. She juggles her day between her job as an Income tax employee and sending both children to school/pre-school, cooking, and keeping them entertained.

Denying children their time with the TV is an act of selfishness on the part of parents. Why do children watch TV? In my view, the answer is they do that when they do not have any alternative.

Look at it from a child's view point; he comes from school spending three hours in a large group of children – he comes home and sees people there doing their own thing, which he cannot relate to. He has actually come in expecting a refreshing and entertaining time, but is left with a sense of void, and the usual set of questions of how the day was, and instructions of good habits, such as keep your shoes here, and your bag there.

They just want to have a real conversation, and engage themselves in fun interaction.

It is when they do not get this that they turn to the TV for relief. It is therapeutic. It takes them to a world that is attractive, and life is fun.

I believe as we as parents have a task on hand – we need to involve ourselves more in their entertainment with the TV, get curious and really interested in what they watch and what they enjoy. They will then open up with us, and will like to watch the same programs with elders. It will lead to true companionship, where elders do not sit in judgment over the kids.

As days pass they may value the companionship of the parents while watching TV more than actually watching the TV, and that could be the beginning of the next level. Unless the parents get addicted to watching the programs themselves and ignore the children!

Kids & TV Watching

Our daughter loves to watch TV - be it Elmo, Backyardigans, Curios George which is one of her favorites, Dora, etc. More recently, she is crazy about movies and the song and dance routines in them (Indian movies). She loves to dance along with the songs in the movies and can actually do a move or two!

Shutting the TV off when she is watching will make her red-faced and her eyes full of tears and she will flop on the carpet with her palms banging on them crying 'TeeeVeeee........'. A funny sight indeed!

She is also a very poor eater of lunch/dinner at home. When we give her food (rice or chapati which is Indian tortilla made of whole wheat, along with veggies and lentil soup, etc.), she eats only the chapatis, leaving the rest of the food untouched. By chance one day we realized that this wasn't the case when the TV is turned on for her entertainment. At this point, we can easily blackmail her into eating all of her food and be assured that she will finish everything and then some more!

What is it about the TV that makes her succumb to our earnest requests to her to eat her food? On the condition that she can watch the song and dance routines, she displays exemplary behavior which basically means that she listens to what we say to her :-)

What is it about the TV that captivates kids? I don't know if we can generalize this habit for a large population of kids of course. My wife and I sometimes feel very guilty about what we are doing and keep thinking what we are doing here is not right for our child -- letting her watch too much TV (she watches about an hour and 15 mins of TV each day which we think is a lot). But we have been so far giving in to the apparent benefit its providing us -- she eats her lunch/dinner.

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Does anyone have other alternatives that can be used to make sure that the child is able to eat her food properly and at the right time? Agreed, TV is an important medium of entertainment and education based on the shows that are available for growing kids, but just how much is enough? Where does one draw the line?