TV: How much do you allow?

[Tot-Time]

I am not anti-tv but I do not let the children watch tv at all in daycare.

According to my contract the children can watch up to 1.5 hours (or a movie) per day. This is reserved for older children who don't nap during quiet time and may need a movie.

At the present all my children are under 3 and nap. We do have the occassional movie, it works out to be about 2 - 5 per year, mainly when we have had a lot of rainy days or cold weather. We just have a busy program and find we don't have time for movies. My meals are made in advance so we go right from our activities to eating.

Though one thing I am guilty of is letting the children play with my playbook during free play. My youngest daughter dances and the girls I have in care love watching her dance and trying to dance like her. So some mornings they have the playbook to watch her dancing. They can watch her dance for up to 15 min before they decide to play again and they could do this up to twice a week. Also mixed in with my daughters dance videos are the short clips I have taken of the daycare children themselves, so the kids enjoy watching themselves too. Sometimes this happens during drop off so the parents also enjoy watching the clips of the children playing.