The idiot box and my daughter....!!

TV has today become an integral part of any individual's life. One just cant survive without it. It has become a neccessity than a luxury element in our lives.

When my daughter who is 3 years old now... started watching TV for more than 2 hours a day (not at a strench though)... I got really disturbed.... I have read these articles where doctors says No TV for more than 2 hours... blaah blaah blaah...!! But on a practical note.... how much of that becomes true.

I agree too much of TV is bad for a child.. but can we please define that too much...!! Too much of the stupid Saas Bahu seriels in hindi and family drama in Tamil.. (which invariably will have a scheming storyline)is bad not only for the child... but the entire family. Our seriel story writers need to seriously do something about their creative sense...but then thats their problem.

Coming back to my point... I dont think TV has been bad for my daughter. She watched TV from the time she turned 2 and initially started off with Nursery rhymes and gradually started watching Nick, Cartoon Network and currently is a fan of CBeebies. I would personally thank each of these channels for their programmes, Be it Dora and Little Krishna(Nick), Krishna series in Cartoon network, or almost all the episodes in CBeebies.

My daughter has a habit of listening to story before she takes a nap or goes to bed at night.... and Dora and her adventures have been such a great help for a story telling session. She loves adventures... and she also tries to build stories on those. Same thing with Little Krishna on nick, sometimes giving a picture to a popular charactar makes the stories so much more interesting. My daughter now is able to relate Bala Krishna Leela so well. When we say Kalinga... she has the right image in her mind... when we say dhenukasura....it was so difficult for her to picture it in her mind... but now she has a face she can relate to in the charctar and that makes my story telling so much more interesting to her.And CBeebies is a channel I just cant thank enough, Their charactars,seriels... each one them has taught new things to my daughter. Through "Teletubbies" she has learnt to use words like "Interesting", "Disappear","Special" and many more. Using them correctly in the sentence is amazing.

It is that period of her childhood.. where she has imaginary friends...when i ask my daughter.. who are your friends.. apart from the children she plays in the park.. she also adds charatars like, Krishna,Balaram,Madhu,Subala,Chaaru,Radha, Lalita and Visakha. All of hem were Krishna childhood friends...!!

And I could just go on and on about all the surprising things I hear from her. To cut it short, I'd just say in my opinion, the TV has been a great help to my daughter in increasing her Vocabulary as well as building her thoughts. I guess it is upto us what we show our kids and how we try to use them in our daily lives. I guess rather than telling the child NO TV... show them interesting stuff and let them also enjoy their childhood... after all this is when they can enjoy.... Once they enter the secondary schooling.. life will be gruellingly sick for them... (Dont we know that ! ).

Here's my three cheers to TV.. and a Thank you for helping my child ..!!

Do we all share this idea??