I had a little 2.5 year old over with his mom. (She is a recent single mom now and I though it would be fun to have dinner and let the kids play.)
Her son threw balls at Connor's face and purposefully hit him. On top of it, they brought over Harry Potter which is apparently his favorite.
I've been seeming to have a problem with other boys Connor's age and violence. His other buddy up the street is almost 3 and has been into Batman since he was 2. There's a lot of violence in that cartoon for kids this age, don't you think? The other kid is also violent, along with his older brother.
The most I'll let Connor watch is Teletubbies and ONLY while I am making dinner.
I don't think these kids will be spending much time together. It's so sad.

By Reds9298 on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 09:25 pm:

I agree Heidi.
Natalie watches Playhouse Disney, a few Barney videos that were handed down to us from my sister,and sometimes a few shows on Noggin (She likes Blue, but doesn't watch much, and the same goes for Dora...she gets excited about Dora but has never watched more than 5 min.) Her favorite shows to watch are Barney and Wiggles without a doubt.

I really think Playhouse Disney is a safe channel and that's why she watches it. I've also found that I do like Noggin, but there aren't as many shows that she really likes there. She's more into the little transition characters there! She does really like Maisy, but only gets to see it if she gets up earlier than normal.

By Reds9298 on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 09:25 pm:

She's having a Barney birthday!

By Tink on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 09:38 pm:

Heidi, we really restricted our children's TV time and were very strict about what they were allowed to watch. We still are and it's amazing to me what other parents allow their kids to watch. At Conner's age, my kids watched Barney or Teletubbies dvds and my oldest watched a couple of Playhouse Disney shows once a week or so. Even now, there are several Nickelodeon shows I'd prefer my dks not watch and that and Disney channel are the only channels they watch.

The older they get, the more I have to emphasize that what other kids are allowed to do isn't necessarily what we allow, regarding TV, clothing, music and exposure to violence in any media. Two weeks ago, my oldest (8yo) came home from a friend's house and they'd watched "Red Water", a terribly made, rated R thriller and she was scared to go to bed for the next three nights. Believe me, I never expected my DH and I to be strict parents!

By Luvn29 on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:04 pm:

I still limit what cartoons my kids can watch, and they are going on seven and ten. Most of the cartoons on The Cartoon Network are off limits even in the daytime. They don't even think about turning it on there after dark!!! Isn't that terrible? We have to watch what cartoons our children watch?

When they were little, they loved Stanley on Playhouse Disney, I think. And Bear in the Big Blue House, and Little Bear. Not sure if any of those come on anymore. They also watched some shows on PBS, maybe Dragon Tales?

We don't really have to limit our kids on how much television they watch because they do that themselves. Neither one ever wants to watch much. Sometimes I feel like saying, Would you please just go watch television!!! But I still only let them watch certain stations, and certain approved shows on those channels.

By Reds9298 on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:34 pm:

Adena- I completely agree about Cartoon Network. I watched it a few times (before Natalie came along!) because my sister was so against it for her children. I completely agreed with her after about seeing about 2 shows.

We also watch a lot of Animal Planet together. That's a fave and a staple around here, for the whole family.

By Pamt on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:44 pm:

As toddlers/preschoolers my kids ONLY watched PBS kids shows. They loved Barney the most and we also checked out a lot of the Wee Sing videos from the church library. They loved those too! I'm personally not a fan at all of Teletubbies or Boobah because there is no educational value in those, IMO. At least with Barney, the Wiggles, Sesame Street, etc. they are learning about music, language, getting along, etc. But, yes Heidi, I agree that it is amazing what some parents let their little ones watch! Harry Potter at age 2??? Sheesh!! I found out today that one of the 5 year olds in our summer camp at the clinic watched that DIrty Santa movie---he was talking about it to the OT.

By Mommmie on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 10:55 pm:

I, too, was always amazed at what parents would let their under 5 kids watch. Some parents (READ: Dads!) thought it was funny to expose kids to stuff young, other kids had older sibs and they were watching what the older sibs watched and in some cases they were watching what the parents were watching.

My kiddo was in full time daycare by age 2 so he didn't watch much TV at all. He didn't really start watching it until age 5. When he did watch it was Barney and Barney, balanced by some more Barney and then when he was done with that he'd watch Barney. (This was 10 years ago. I don't even know a lot of the shows y'all are talking about.)

By Mrsheidi on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:05 pm:

Ok, glad I'm not crazy...
And, as for Teletubbies, they are actually educational. I have a few DVD's and they teach about colors, exercise, social interactions, and basically love. That's what I like about Barney too. I'm personally not a big fan of the big purple dinosaur, but the things that show teaches is wonderful. Same goes for Sesame Street.

PamT...dirty santa? WOW.

By Mrsheidi on Friday, June 9, 2006 - 11:06 pm:

Oh, and Animal Planet...GOOD one! I'll have to find that station. We have too many darn stations and we hardly watch ANY of them!

By Dawnk777 on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 12:30 am:

When my kids were little, it was mostly PBS, KidSongs Videos, maybe some Disney. They wouldn't have been watching Harry Potter or Batman.

When Sarah was 6 and in first grade, she went over to a girl's house after school. The other girl was a much younger sibling to kids who were in their 20's. So, I suppose to her, watching VH-1, was normal, but it wasn't for my daughter. She was uncomfortable with watching it and told me so, when she got home. "I shouldn't have been watching that, should I?" They didn't really hang out that much together, anyway.

By Jackie on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 06:25 am:

Faith is 22 months old. She watches mainly Barney and the Wiggles, they are her favorite.

By Colette on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 08:50 am:

When my kids were little it was pretty much strictly pbs and videos that I knew were not violent. I don't like nick because of the commercials, sometimes I would tape shows like Little Bear minus the commericals and I always hated that giant talking tv screen thing they had on, they never watched the cartoon network. Now that they are older, tv is just not a big thing in our lives. They might use it to play a video game with dh or to watch a movie, sometimes ds watches discovery, but that's it. I am amazed as well now that they are teenagers what their friends are allowed to watch as far as movies (most see whatever they want) and tv shows.

By Happynerdmom on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 10:07 am:

Dawn has a good point...for kids with older siblings, I'm afraid the small kids watch much different programming than if it is just them.

My dk's watched Barney, PBS, and Disney at that age.

By Enchens on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 02:47 pm:

I'm very strict with what my son watches as well. I let him watch a Scholastic video that had the story of Is Your Mama a Llama along with a couple of others. There was one tiny millisecond piece with a hunter and a gun in one of the duck stories. He had never seen guns before. Suddenly, everything that he could point at someone was a coon-coon. (that's what he calls it.) From that point on, I screen EVERYTHING, even if it's supposed to be safe.
At his age of three, I allow him to watch things like the Wiggles, Wonderpets, Dora and Diego, Maisy, and Pinky Dinky Doo, as well as Postcards from Buster. So that's one Playhouse Disney show, some Nick jr shows and some Noggin and two from PBS-the other PBS show is Clifford. He doesn't watch all these every day. He gets to choose what he'll watch for the day, with the time limits I give him. So for a certain time slot, he gets the choice of watching show A or show B. He gets 4 shows a day, each a half hour, and I split them up. Sometimes, I tape the shows so that I have them on hand even if they are not on the television at the time he is allowed to watch tv.
I agree with everyone's posts about the violence in cartoons. Waaay too much.

By Dana on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 03:33 pm:

When DD was that age, she was only allowed to watch PBSKids. We eventually started doing some of the more other channels. Can't remember the name, but it had Little Bear, Timothy Goes to School, and Franklin. I would say however that 98% of her time at tv was PBS. I'm not happy w/ PBS right now for the little one. The Boobahs are AWFUL! DS will not even watch them.

I can not stand the Wiggle but DS does, so we watch about 10 minutes of it. He LOVES teletubbies, but it only comes on once a day at 6pm and usually we miss it.

Until lately, DD never was not allowed to watch any stations w/ commercials. She now watches the Disney channel. By her own choice she does not watch the other channels that I still disapprove of, like Cartoon Network.

Even the videos or movie theater shows I was strick on. If the characters had an attitude, she could not watch it. Her first theater movie was Piglets Big Adventure. Taht was perfect for her. She had just turned 4. She was at the end of Kindergarten when I let her watch Lion King. That made too many comments that I didn't approve of. But she was old enough to understand why she was not allowed to talk that way before she could watch it.

By Crystal915 on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 05:10 pm:

Dora, Go Deigo, Go, Lazytown, The Wonder Pets, basically the Nick Jr. lineup. The only thing I dislike is the "adult" commercials they show, like for debt consolidation and such, because I don't want my 4 year olds asking what it means when you can't pay your bills.

By Reds9298 on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 09:31 pm:

Crystal - Do you have Noggin? That's the preschool version (I think!) of Nick, Jr. so Natalie can see *most* of the shows you listed...commercial free. She thinks the Wonder Pets show is way cool!

I don't think we've ever had it turned to Nick, Jr., just for the commercials like you mentioned. I have been really happy with Noggin though, and the online stuff is great, too.

By Cocoabutter on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 02:13 pm:

I used to babysit a boy who was my son's age, when they were 2. This boy was into Power Rangers- a show which was rated TVY7. He brought over a video one day, and since I had never seen the show, I let him watch it and I watched it with him. I observed that he was SO into the show that he knew all the combat moves that they made on the show, and he mimmicked them as he was watching. He was every bit a Power Ranger as the characters in the video. AND all that day I had more issues with his behavior than I had ever had in the previous 6 months I had been babysitting him. He was agressive, bossy, and downright mean to the other kids.

I mentioned his behavior to his dad, stressing that kids at that age do not have the ability to fully distinguish fantasy from reality, and he shrugged it off.

Meanshile, at age 2, my son was into Barney, Pooh and Little Bear. And yes, I would tape them without the commercials, too. I had allowed him to watch Rugrats when he was 3, but then he started picking up on Angelica's bratty behavior and mimmicking her. So, we took a break form Rugrats. It was quite a few months before I allowed him to watch that again. It wasn't until he was 5 or 6 that he got into Spiderman or Batman.

By Kym on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 04:03 pm:

We don't have cable TV so all 4 of my kids are very limited. We have PBS so they watch that after school if we are home, they watch Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, we have an unusual selection because since we have cable internet it feeds some channels to TV, we used to have full cable, I couldn't even stand Disney and Nick! and found Discovery and Animal Planet to be my favs, so we got lucky
As far as my 2 year old goes, he can watch about 15 minutes of Animal planet, and have not tried him on any PBS yet, I think he's watched Elmo once.
I really don't know if the violence they see on TV is the violence they portray. For us, my 2 year old is into pinching he does not see this on any TV, nor does he see any violence on TV, he has a high frustration level with 2 older brothers that "mess" with him, hence he pinches them, I think it's the parents stepping in and re directing the frustration away from violence into a positive, (not to mention stopping the olders from teasing). 2 year olds are exploring and experiencing so much at this age, the age when limitations are crucial. So IMHO, I would think maybe these boys are not being limited on their exposure AS WELL as there behaviors. Sad indeed!

By Crystal915 on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 06:10 pm:

I do have Noggin, and we do watch that a lot of the time, but since I have Nick east and Nick west (satellite) we sometimes end up catching the early morning shows later in the day on Nick Jr West.