Screen Time

Screen time for children is a sensitive subject, as some parents do not allow their children to watch tv/videos whilst they are young. 

There are many valid reasons cited for this decision. These include the lack of exercise involved, and taking away from family time. Screens can be addictive and all consuming for the child. Screen time can take away from more traditional tactile toys. It can be seen a glorified babysitter. It can open the doors to inappropriate content, leading to over stimulation, and distraction from learning. 

I'll be perfectly honest, I strongly believed all of this when Sophia was born, and I was determined that she would not be introduced to this world when she was a baby. 

I wanted her to traditionally play and love books. My experience of children's TV did not impress me. I certainly did not want her to watch TV just for the sake of watching. 

When she was 18 months however, I stumbled across Mother Goose Club on YouTube accidently, which led to the discovery of the new world of educational channels.

I introduced the Club to her and she loved all the characters. Her academic learning was initiated from that first alphabet video. I kept control over what she watched, how long she watched it for, and it complemented her learning environment perfectly. 

She continued to love her bricks, educational toys, and cuddlys, and happily watched this channel. 

I discovered through this, how important music is to her, and how she retains information far quicker when set to music. 

She now makes up her own songs and tunes and she sings pretty much constantly. This has become one of her processing techniques to manage her autism. She sings about her day; what's happened, what she loves about the day, and how she feels.

Within this channel favourite nursery characters come to life with this team of beautiful performers. The singing is lovely and the videos are so much fun. We have Baa Baa, Teddy, Mary, Jack, Eep the mouse and more. They are very entertaining and the songs are memorable, with alphabet, numbers and popular nursery rhymes. Popular songs in our household is 'Driving in my car' and the 'Ice cream song'. 

When Kira was born I discovered Bounce Patrol, and it was a great bonding experience between the girls. The tunes are bouncy and fun, they make you want to get up and dance. I would dance round the room with Kira in my arms, Sophia twirling round my legs. The songs are awesome and stick in your head, but as a parent you don't actually mind with these tunes. 

One of Kira's autistic traits is a rocking stim, and once she was introduced to Bounce Patrol she would rock in time with the music. 

As she has grown older she has developed a spinning stim as well, and also rocks standing up as well as sat down. This is her processing technique, and when she has to make sense of her world she puts music on and rocks/spins to the music. This is also a preferred learning technique of hers. She has educational videos on and it's amazing what she can learn in such a short period of time, whilst she's moving. 

This is a personal favourite for me, they are a group of fun loving, very talented live action performers, who teach through their beautiful, memorable, upbeat songs and colourful effects, costumes, and sets. 

Go along and meet Sam, Jacinta, Jackson, Alyssa, Will and Rachel, who will guide your children through learning their colours, animal sounds, and alphabet via themes which really helps with vocabulary. They also explore numbers, shapes and topics such as food, they encourage the children to use the imagination and learn new languages. There is a Spanish version of the channel too. This is so popular with my three, our favourites are 'Alphabet Animals', 'Dance Party', and 'Colours everywhere' . 

Alexander was born and by the time he was ten months old and was beginning to concentrate on the TV, the girls were moving on from these two channels. It was at this time I discovered the beautiful world of Cocomelon and he loved it, and as a result by the age of two he had learnt his abc, numbers, colours, and  shapes easily.

This channel is expansive, it covers traditional and modern nursery rhymes. Themes include potty training, the act of sharing and being thankful. It covers the milestones in a pre schoolers life, like going to school, getting dressed by themselves, washing their hands, bathing, and having a big boys bed. The nursery lessons are great in order to pass on ideas for home schooling parents. 

The animation involves an endearing family and friends, great tunes, and voice actors. It is very easy to watch and has great clean content. The girls learnt potty training from that particular video. Xander learnt a great deal of his preschool education from it due to being in hospital such a lot of the time. Personal favourites include 'Please and Thank you', 'ABC song' , 'Musical instruments', and bedtime lullabies. 

These channels are a wonderful way to introduce them to the fun world of learning. They can be trusted and can be used in many versatile ways to suit your personal views with screen time. It remains in your control as a parent. You can use it merely as an educational resource and not necessarily introduce it as a free viewing activity. 

Alternatively you could use it part of a reward system when they're little and they get a few videos released for good behaviour or reaching milestones. As they are educational, it's a win all round.