The Finnlings' television favorites

I am very grateful for Christina’s post “The Slippery Slope that is our TV”. Let me say upfront that I am dealing with this slippery slope right now, as I am in the first trimester of my third pregnancy and can easily slip into a pattern of allowing the television to babysit my children. Thankfully, this is something of which my husband and I are aware, that we are working through, and we are seeking the Lord’s guidance in it. Can we, as Prayer of Hannah readers, agree to encourage each other on to excellency and God’s glory in this matter, and in all other matters of life and parenting?

Now, on to my children’s favorite television shows and movies! We use antenna to pick up our television channels, and consequently receive all major networks, including PBS and PBS Kids. My children, Georgia who is 3 ½, and Baxter, who is 20 months, enjoy several shows on PBS Kids. If we did not have this channel, we would not watch much television, if any at all. Georgia’s favorites are Super Why!, Dinosaur Train and Word World. Baxter will generally watch a little bit of whatever G is watching, of course. When we have the privilege of visiting of grandparents, and take advantage of their cable, my children LOVE Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, and Special Agent Oso. I have purchased a couple of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes on ITunes that I keep on my computer for ‘emergencies’, and those are special treats for the children. In addition, my family subscribes to Netflix, and as such we have access to their Instant Play catalog. G and B love watching episodes of Kipper, SuperWhy! and Angelina Ballerina on the computer. Georgia especially finds Kipper amusing right now—Something in these simple, short episodes about a British dog named Kipper make her laugh every time. I enjoy hearing her laugh!

A confession about myself: I love musicals, and I have passed along that love to my children. My kids enjoy Mary Poppins, The Music Man, Oklahoma!, and The Sound of Music. Mary Poppins was one of the first movies Georgia and I watched together—one of us was sick, but I don’t remember which one. She didn’t watch all of it, but she enjoyed the singing and dancing (and the penguins, of course!). They also enjoy several Disney cartoons, with Georgia prefers princess movies like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, while Baxter likes boy movies like Cars and Peter Pan. Right now, though, G’s favorite movie is what she simply calls “Jessie”, or Toy Story 2. As an aside, we fast-forward through different parts of movies if they are inappropriate/scary/too slow. For instance, in the movie Oklahoma! there is a dream dance sequence that is long and drawn out, and involves women dressed as bar girls in the wild west—we fast forward through that!

My general rule of thumb is to not allow my kids to watch more than 1 – 1.5 hours of television a day, with movies being watched a couple of times a week. We will have several days that the television is not turned on at all, and then a few days where we watch PBS Kids for 30 minutes to an hour every morning. It varies. Life changes. I get sick, the kids get sick, it rains, it pours, I am lazy, it is a reward—you know the drill. Most importantly, we try not to allow the television or movies to rule our lives. We do not HAVE to watch a show every day or every week (that applies to me and my husband as well) and we do not HAVE to watch a movie at a particular time.

Just for fun, a few of MY favorite television shows are The Today Show, Mythbusters (via Netflix), NCIS, and Glee (current shows), and West Wing, Frasier, and Star Trek: TNG (cancelled). What shows do you, our readers, watch—not your kids, but you?

Will and Adeline's Top Picks

This is probably the most requested video at the moment. Toy Story and Toy Story 2! With the upcoming release of Toy Story 3 (on June 18th, just ask Will...he's counting down) - we upgraded to DVD copies of the movies for a very good price thanks to good deals and coupons! Will especially LOVES Woody and Buzz right now. As far as Disney movies go, we're ok with this one.

(There are others we aren't ok with - including Princess and the Frog. But I only know this because my friend Rebecca share with me their concerns about the voodoo in the movie!)

I am actually SO EXCITED about Toy Story 3 and can't wait to see it! I feel like Buzz Lightyear is a third child in our house sometimes...


Special Agent Oso is a playhouse Disney show. Jacob really likes this one because all of the episodes are named after Bond movies. The premise of the show is that Oso is given a special assignment to help a kid learn a certain skill. They learn three special steps and master the skill (learning to play hopscotch, tying the shoe, washing the dishes, etc.) I think its really cute and Will loves it!

The other day, I told Will we were going strawberry picking. He told me he was going to "twist and pull" the strawberries!? Apparently, there an Oso episode where they learned how to pick strawberries.

The Wiggles are still going strong in our house - nearly three years after Will first discovered them. (Even having seen them LIVE when some friends won tickets two years ago!) Adeline is really the most into Wiggles right now, but both kids love them. The Wiggles show comes on a channel that we have "on demand" so we have a few shorter episodes to watch in addition to some DVDs we've collected.

Franklin is the first on my list of what we don't watch! The bottom line is that I think Franklin whines and doesn't always have a good attitude. He used to come on Noggin (now Nick Jr.) which is a channel we prefer because of the no commercials. But, I don't let Will watch Franklin and he knows why.

Max and Ruby is another one we avoid. Ruby is a little bossy to Max and seems to be in charge. The parents are almost never seen. The bottom line is that we're not going to be able to shelter Will from all "bad examples" - but there are plenty of options that don't include characters like these.

(Word World and the Leap Frog videos were also mentioned by Leah and these are other favorites of ours as well.)

A few others that have cycled through as favorites include:

Hide 'em in your heart DVD

Cedarmont Kids Bible Songs

Little People DVDs from Fisher Price (given free with toys or through online promotion)

Jonah the Veggie Tales movie (though I can't convince them to watch any other Veggie Tales)

Dinosaur Train on PBS

I'm saying this as a reminder to myself as well - but its so easy to assume that all preschool programming (and videos) is "safe" when there may be themes and examples we don't agree with. There are a couple of websites to use when trying to get an idea of the movie or tv show and what it might include. They are:

Plugged In - a Focus on the Family ministry

Kids In Mind

Screen It

Any final thoughts on tv/video viewing for our little ones? Thanks for the comments this week!

The slippery slope that is our tv....

Since it has already been addressed and discussed a little, I thought I would take a minute and explain our history with tv usage. This wasn't the intended direction of this weeks' topic - but I think its necessary to address while we discuss our favorite shows!

Well, when we first got married, Jacob was in seminary, working and I was teaching full time. There wasn't much time for tv watching - though we do have a few fav shows and love to watch NCSU sports. We had an antennae at that time. Until we started having trouble getting the antennae to pick up CBS...which is the Survivor channel and many wolfpack sporting events...

So we upgraded to basic cable (20 channels) to ensure we got CBS.

And then I went on bedrest with Will, so we upgraded our service to include all 75ish channels of standard cable. We reduced it back to basic when maternity leave ended.

Another bedrest (this one much longer) came in 2008, so we once again got full cable and have had it ever since. I think the hook for us that time around was the fact that Will was two and would watch tv more than before. In addition, I was now a stay at home Mom.

At first, we limited it to 30 minutes a day. Then we settled at 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes just before Daddy got home. Do you see the slippery slope??

There have been times where we have very easily slipped into a bad habit of having the tv on consistently all morning. Usually it follows a sickness or busy time when we have one day that leads to several...It is SUCH a slippery slope and you don't even realize its happening!

Thankfully, we're at a stage now where my kids are getting a little older and we're out of the house more (more than the infant stage...) for activities - especially in the warm months - so naturally less tv is watched.

I share all of this so you have a real picture of how much tv we watch. It is a continual process of evaluating how we spend our time and making changes to avoid the tv. I try to be intentional about sending them outside to play. We just moved into a house with a great side deck that I can block off and see from my kitchen. It's great to get the kids out of the house. We also retreat to our upstairs bonus area to do puzzles, color, etc. and there is NO TV upstairs.

The other day I needed my kids (2 and almost 4) to sit still for about 10 minutes while I finished getting ready. Instead of turning on the tv, I had them pick out a stack of books and take a seat on the couch (separate couches, actually :) I was SHOCKED when they sat that for MORE than ten minutes and quietly looked at books! It was a rare moment of obedience and much better than turning on the tv, even for just 10 minutes.

I'll do a separate post about the actual shows/DVDs that are our favorites! And some that I avoid and why. Anyone else struggle with letting their kids watch too much tv?

TV at our house...

I had to laugh when I saw the topic I would be writing about for my first post as a POH author, because I'm not going to be much help when it comes to kid shows -- we pretty much keep the TV off at our house when the girls are awake. I know that there are a lot of great educational shows available, but my husband and I simply decided that we didn't want the TV to be a focus at our house. Karis is three years old and has learned all the basics easily from books and puzzles.

Every now and then Karis will wake up from a nap on the weekends and find her Daddy watching a tennis match or basketball game, but after snuggling for a minute, she is usually asking him to read to her instead. I have, however, let her watch a Praise Baby or Cedarmont Kids music DVD on 2 different occasions when she was utterly sick and miserable and needed distraction. She absolutely LOVED both of them and I would gladly recommend them both. However, please keep in mind that we have only watched them once so I can't promise that they would not get annoying if watched in repetition :)

We have also on occasion let her watch a short, funny YouTube video about silly puppies or kittens or a familiar musical clip (like the Sound of Music train station clip). But once again, it is usually only when she is hurt and would benefit from a quick distraction or for short educational purposes. (For instance, when Karis first started soccer, the coach asked her to walk like a penguin and keep the ball between her feet. She had no concept of a penguin, so when we got home, I pulled up a quick You Tube video to show her.)

I don't want you to think that we are ridiculous about our no-TV policy because we really don't treat it as a big deal. If there is an historical event or a major sports game on, we will turn the TV on for a while. But it doesn't happen regularly and we usually don't just sit in front of the TV to watch it; we go about our normal routines and just catch what we can. And we definitely do not make a big deal about TV elsewhere. My girls see the TV on all the time at relatives' and friends' houses, restaurants, etc., and do fine with it.

I have to be honest and admit that because my girls have early bedtimes (Karlie, 6:00 and Karis, 7:00), my husband and I do enjoy watching TV in the evenings after they are asleep. We do not pay for cable but get a surprising number of channels through the free digital box. Once the girls are older and staying up later, however, I'm hoping that we will kick the habit and do family activities instead :)

So how long will we keep the TV off? To be honest, we haven't really set an age or a time. It is just one of those things that we will figure out as we go. I really doubt that we will ever get into the habit of watching regular shows with them. But as they get older, I think it will be beneficial to watch different things with them to discuss what they see and help them learn to evaluate media with a Biblical perspective. And I'm sure that in the future I will greatly utilize the educational aspects of DVD's and the internet.

Oh, to TV or not to TV

Hello everyone! Welcome to a new week! This week's topic is "Favorite TV Shows and DVDs" - and I'm pretty sure we mean for our kids, but I suppose we could add our own favorites as well!

Before I even delve into WHAT we watch on TV/DVD, I suppose I should cover WHEN/IF we watch TV/DVDs. After Samuel was born, we didn't consistently have a TV in our home until we moved to Chicago when he was 17 months old. We did get a little TV from the thrift store when we were in CA to watch football games, but it stayed in the closet during the week. Samuel didn't really see much TV until we got Comcast in Chicago. When he was 19 months old, Joel was born and I discovered the kids shows you could choose on the Comcast OnDemand. We had our TV for the 6 months we lived in that house. When we moved to our new house (Samuel 22 months, Joel 3 months) we had the TV out for a little bit, but then put it away. We have since had it out off and on in the two years we've lived here. All that to say that Samuel wasn't exposed to much TV for the first 2 years of his life. Joel has definitely seen more in his first 2 years than Samuel did. I will say that I am a No TV supporter - especially before the age of 2 and especially in the summer. But I also don't want to be a hypocrite and act like my children have never feasted their innocent eyes on a TV program! :)

Now that Samuel is 3.5 and Joel is 2, they watch maybe 30 minutes of TV 4-5 days a week (that's my best estimate). We watch a combination of TV programs with DVDs from the library. We have our TV out right now b/c the college student that lives with us likes to watch it, but it will go back in the closet once he moves out next month.

TV Shows We Like:

Word World. This is probably the boys favorite. It is cute and fun and the boys are entertained by it. It comes on at 5:00pm here in Chicago, so it can be a handy distraction if I need to do some hands-on dinner prep. It is 2 15-minute segments that are about building words. It's pretty cute and tolerable to me. :)

Dinosaur Train. We catch this one about once every other week. I think it is on about 9:30am and we're not usually home during this time. But I know the boys really like it, so if I notice it's 9:30 and we're not doing much I'll let them watch. It is about dinosaurs that ride a train to visit other dinosaurs from different periods. The boys like it because they are really into learning all the different kinds of dinosaurs.

Handy Manny. Same here - probably once every other week. Maybe less. It isn't too bad of a show. Just a guy fixing things. I couldn't tell you what time it's on, if that gives you any idea of how infrequently we watch it.

Those are the only shows my boys watch with any consistency. They have also seen Dora once (mind-numbing - I HATE that show), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (cute but on before they are awake), Martha Speaks (over their head), Arthur (on during naps), and Curious George (also a very cute show but usually on during naps. Joel has probably seen more of it than Sam b/c it is on at 3 and if he wakes up early from a nap I will let him watch this while I finish what I'm doing).

DVDs we watch:

My boys probably watch DVDs more than they watch TV. We have a portable DVD player that they watch their DVDs on. We own a few DVDs that they used to watch, but now we get all our DVDs from the library.

Leap Frog Letter Factory/Talking Words Factory (1&2)/Let's Go to School. OUR ALL TIME FAVORITE DVDs!! Both of my boys can sing their alphabet song and tell you the name and sound of each letter. Both could do this before the age of 2 and all from watching the Letter Factory video. It's a good length (35 minutes) and pretty cute. Here is Joel showing off for you (I took this video the week before his 2nd birthday - now that he is 2 and 2 months he can do them all without help):
[VIDEO FORTHCOMING]
The Talking Words videos (35 minutes, 30 minutes) teach how to sound out words. Here is Samuel at 3 sounding out and spelling words:

The Let's Go to School one is the least exciting of the bunch (in my opinion, but my boys really loved it). But it does manage to pack in the alphabet, counting, animal families, days of the week and more in 35 minutes.

We also get different Non-Fiction DVDs from our library's children's section. I think I wrote a week or two back about getting books from the library on topics Samuel is interested in. I'll also check the DVD section to see if there is anything of interest. We currently have in our house a DVD about the life cycle of the frog, a Spanish video about animals, and a phonics video.

That about sums up our TV/DVD viewing. What's on at your house?