Thank You Dora!

For the past few months Destin has started to watch the show on Nick Jr called "Dora the Explorer". If you watch any kind of children's television shows you would probably recognize her...

She speaks English & Spanish, goes on adventures with Boots the monkey, her purple backpack & map and teaches kids along the way.

We have done a great job of teaching Destin how to use her manners, by saying please and thankyou. Her latest saying is, "Excuse me..." and then asks for something. Its so cute (and polite)! Well, this week I thought it was so neat to see Destin use her skills learned from Dora by saying, "Gracias" and "De Nada" (not sure if I spelled those right). She even has been counting in Spanish too! Its so cool to know the power of education has on your children - even if it coming from the television.

I know there are a lot of critics in the medical field that say television is really not okay for children under the age of 2, but I have to say that I disagree. Destin learns so much from Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer and other educational television shows. So what that most of the stuff is fiction?! I love that she can imagine, and create ideas of her own based from what she sees on these shows. So I have to say - Thank You to Dora & Rosita (from Sesame Street) who are teaching my daughter Spanish. She definitely will know more than I do :)

TV time vs. timeout

My goal for the past two weeks was to put TV in a timeout...simply because Destin & I would watch TV all the time if we could. The first went really well - we would watch Dora & then Sesame Street, and then I would turn off the tele for the rest of the day (from 10 AM) until after Destin's nap (around 3:30 PM). We did this almost everyday for about a week...but then I just started to forget, got lazy and left it on most of the day.

One of Destin's fav shows is Dora :)

I know that having the TV on all the time is not good for us, and we need to do other things - which we do. But it makes me wonder about all the research that says children should not watch tv under the age of 2.

Here is an article I found from AAP:
http://www.aap.org/sections/media/toddlerstv.htm

There is also another article that lists what children are not doing, which I don't fully agree on. Destin runs, jumps, dances, sings, asks questions, interacts and talks to me & the characters on her shows (Sesame Street & Dora). This article is very interesting to me...
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/work-play/Media/pages/What-Children-are-NOT-Doing-When-Watching-TV.aspx?nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR%3a+No+local+token

Whether or not, parents let thier children watch tv is up to them...and more than likely most parents will let their baby or babies watch tv before they turn 2 years old. I read, play games, pretend, sing, listen to music, color, do crafts & more with Destin everyday. A little tv can't hurt, right?