I make an effort to limit my daughter's tv time. She colours, she sings, she plays. But I do not eliminate it entirely, because it can be a teaching tool.
The soul-sucking nature of television has more to do with the babysitter factor than with the tv itself. Good shows and encouragement to make them toddler-interactive are a good thing in small doses. They're an important element of literacy in our culture, IMO.
I was raised pretty much without TV or popular music. I still haven't recovered. It's a pretty big social problem -- I miss, oh, maybe 3/4 of all pop culture references, and most of the rest I only get secondarily.
And, I don't seem to have patience enough to watch TV much as an adult, meaning that I have missed much cool stuff in my own subculture since then: I've never seen a single episode of Dr. Who, Babylon-5, Farscape, ST:TNG or after, etc. Stuff that's common culture for SF fans.
Sort of the same way I insisted that Rhys get a name that was definitively a real name instead of just a cool word (unlike mine), I want him to have enough exposure to TV to get pop culture. I expect we'll have a TV evening one night a week, when he's old enough, and I'll watch with him.
You were mentioning a while ago that you sometimes have difficulty with separating voices and sounds in noisy environments. Is tv viewing affected by that, or could it be a symptom of your having watched so little tv growing up?
This is my teacher-curiosity switching on. Someone says something to imply learning disability and I get curious, especially when I know they were very successful learners. If I'm prying too much, tell me so and I'll back off.
I'm not sure they have anything to do with each other. Not sure they don't -- if I'd grown up in a household where there was always a TV on, I suppose I'd either be better separating sounds, or worse socialized. I'm not sure if it's a learning matter or what. My father has the same problem, but worse 'cause he's deaf in one ear.
I talked to the spec ed teacher at my school, and she mentioned that there's a form of dyslexia which is aural in nature - an inability to distinguish one sound from another such as you described. Several other LDs could account for it too, most notably CAP, Central Auditory Processing, in which you would hear everything but be unable to take it in if there was too much of it. I had a child with CAP a few years ago - she had an FM system (a little radio that I wore around my neck and switched on when she needed to hear instructions, so they were going right in the headphones) and she had to sit in a corner at the front away from the pencil sharpener. The difference between the two seems to be in where the problem occurs - dyslexia is a problem with the language centres of the brain, while CAP is a problem with the auditory nervous system.
No matter which it is, if you had it and your father had it, watch for Rhys to develop it around age six or seven, if not sooner. They won't diagnose it any sooner than that, mind you, especially if it turns out to be dyslexia, but if you're aware of what might be happening to him, you'll be one up on most parents from the outset.
Dyslexia comes in many different forms. The one people commonly associate with the term relates to written language, a tendency to mix up letters or write numbers backwards. The aural version would involve a tendency to sort words differently when heard, possibly even mix them up in speech though that doesn't necessarily follow. I would imagine it's quite difficult to diagnose, because it would mirror CAP in many respects. Dyslexics I've known are often able to handle words taken one at a time, when they can sort individual letters; it's when they have large amounts of text that they have trouble. If yours is dyslexia, then sorting one person's speech would usually not be a problem, but every piece of background noise would make it harder.
Also, most learning disabilities have a strong genetic link. I've never known a dyslexic child who didn't have one parent who admitted to similar problems, though often those had gone undiagnosed. LDs are almost universally more common in boys than girls, though CAP is an exception to that rule. If the mother is LD, the chances for her male child to show symptoms are about 30%. If the father is LD, the chances for his male child are close to 70%. Dyslexia and CAP both require medical diagnoses; the Spec Ed teacher will identify the issues and tell you what she/he thinks, then tell you to see your doctor.
In any case, you're at least five years from any possible diagnosis, so I'd just keep it in the back of your mind until something comes up that mirrors your experience but not Vicky's. It may start when he starts daycare, or at least, that may be the first time it becomes obvious.
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This situation improves when he figures out how to turn it on, find the right channel, and sit down to actually watch it.
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I mean. Television. Soul-sucker.
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The soul-sucking nature of television has more to do with the babysitter factor than with the tv itself. Good shows and encouragement to make them toddler-interactive are a good thing in small doses. They're an important element of literacy in our culture, IMO.
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And, I don't seem to have patience enough to watch TV much as an adult, meaning that I have missed much cool stuff in my own subculture since then: I've never seen a single episode of Dr. Who, Babylon-5, Farscape, ST:TNG or after, etc. Stuff that's common culture for SF fans.
Sort of the same way I insisted that Rhys get a name that was definitively a real name instead of just a cool word (unlike mine), I want him to have enough exposure to TV to get pop culture. I expect we'll have a TV evening one night a week, when he's old enough, and I'll watch with him.
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This is my teacher-curiosity switching on. Someone says something to imply learning disability and I get curious, especially when I know they were very successful learners. If I'm prying too much, tell me so and I'll back off.
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No matter which it is, if you had it and your father had it, watch for Rhys to develop it around age six or seven, if not sooner. They won't diagnose it any sooner than that, mind you, especially if it turns out to be dyslexia, but if you're aware of what might be happening to him, you'll be one up on most parents from the outset.
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Also, most learning disabilities have a strong genetic link. I've never known a dyslexic child who didn't have one parent who admitted to similar problems, though often those had gone undiagnosed. LDs are almost universally more common in boys than girls, though CAP is an exception to that rule. If the mother is LD, the chances for her male child to show symptoms are about 30%. If the father is LD, the chances for his male child are close to 70%. Dyslexia and CAP both require medical diagnoses; the Spec Ed teacher will identify the issues and tell you what she/he thinks, then tell you to see your doctor.
In any case, you're at least five years from any possible diagnosis, so I'd just keep it in the back of your mind until something comes up that mirrors your experience but not Vicky's. It may start when he starts daycare, or at least, that may be the first time it becomes obvious.
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All problems can be solved with duct tape
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