TV Time For Children in Daycare/Dayhomes Surprisingly High

And I say surprisingly high because I would expect that with the amount of money that parents pay, there would be NO tv time except for special occasions? Since when do children watch TV in daycare centers, am I that out of the loop? I know it’s been a decade since I have even stepped foot in one, never mind worked in one, but way back in the day, TV was for holidays and parties and absolutely nothing else when it came down to showing it in the daycare center. There were regulations in place that prevented that.

I found this disturbing because I wouldn’t even think to ask a center how much TV time my children were getting. It would be on my list of questions to ask a dayhome operator, however, because the setting is entirely different.

At home-based day care centers, the preschool-age children watched more — 2.4 hours a day on average — compared to 0.4 hours in center-based settings. The differences were less significant with toddlers and infants in home care who viewed 1.6 hours and 0.2 hours, respectively, compared with 0.1 hours for toddlers and none for infants in the centers.

I can’t believe that the average for home-based daycare centers is 2.4 hours a day! That’s a quarter of the time that parents are paying for, based on a 10 hour day with the caregiver. I can’t imagine anyone who would want to pay the kind of fees that are asked, only to have their child spend 25% of their time in front of the television.

I guess this raises a very good point that not only should we ask up front and be very clear about our wants for childcare, but to ask about everything you can possibly think of. I just thought it was a given that parents wouldn’t want their kids watching that amount of TV per day. Silly me!

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