I have learned that when you become a parent, “never” is a very strong word.  For every time I have said the word “never”, I have had to reassess my statements again after Gavin came along.

The other thing I have learned is that theory and practice are two completely different things.  Theory is the gold standard that we all try to aim for.  Practice is an art of adaptability.

For instance, when I was reading my parenting books during my pregnancy, I read that you shouldn’t let your baby watch TV until he is two years old.  I was quite determined to stick to that practice despite the number of friends who said it was very difficult to achieve in this current day.

Now that Gavin is here, I have noticed his head swiveling around to the TV the moment he is anywhere near one!  How do you stop him from watching the TV during his evening play sessions with Ah Kong and Ah Mah when they are watching TV?  It also means that I can never watch TV while he’s a awake because he’ll turn his head to look over his shoulder even if I keep his back to the TV.

With all that said and done, I feel that there are some positive benefits with the TV.  For instance, it’s a good method of distracting Gavin while I use the bathroom.  I think I would rather he watched the TV than leaving him to cry because Mummy had some business to do.  TV is definitely the lesser evil when compared to crying.  And now that I’m trying to teach Gavin sign language, I have to let him watch TV because the lessons are on DVD.

I’ve gone back to the theory against letting babies watch TV and made the following analysis:

The reason why they recommend against allowing babies under two years old watching TV is because:

1. TV is one way interaction.  It doesn’t respond to your baby when your baby tries to talk, therefore it doesn’t encourage your baby’s speech development the way a human can.  For instance, when your baby makes noises, he needs a response from a person to encourage more noise making.  The noise making is the start of speech development - the more he is encouraged to make sounds, the better his speech development progress.

2. Children under the age of two are still learning about the amazing world around them.  They have no concept of fantasy or make belief.  Whatever they see is real to them.  Therefore, if they have no way of knowing that a “talking” helicopter doesn’t happen in real life or that animals can’t talk the way we do.  Programs that depict things that don’t really happen in real life can be a source of confusion for our babies who are trying to understand the world around them.

Given these two reasons, I figure it is okay for Gavin to watch TV as long as:

1. He watches educational programs like National Geographic or Animal Planet (Gavin loves to watch the water animals) or his Baby Signing Time DVD.  If he is watching over our shoulder, then as long as he isn’t watching a show that depicts unreal situations, then I’m okay with that.  For instance, Ah Kong and Ah Mah’s Chinese Drama serials are fine.

2. He only watches TV for a limited amount of time everyday and gets sufficient vocal interaction time.

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