A fond farewell to morning television

I will be the first person to admit that early morning television was my salvation for so many years.  All of my children were early risers well until their school days and I can still remember sitting in the dark under a duvet watching the Cbeebies preview from around 5:45.  I haven’t done this for such a long time that it has probably changed but they used to do a Cbeebies song on a loop for about fifteen minutes before Cbeebies started at 6:00 with a combination of characters and presenters.  It would stay with me and I would then find myself singing it throughout the day.

At 6am, Cbeebies would start up for another day and we would sit a watch the likes of Tellytubbies and Tikkabilla snuggled up quietly before the need to eat or drink kicked in.  It was part of our routine, it enabled me to preserve a small piece of my sanity from being up at that ungodly hour every day.

As the children have grown, the mornings have slowly got later and it is now rare (thank goodness) that any of my children wake before 6:30.  As they have grown, the television programs have grown with them.  A often dominated the choices as she was usually up first and we went through phases of Nick Jnr and Milkshake on Channel Five.  It was a gentle way to start the day but I did miss those Cbeebies mornings, especially Postman Pat which I used to enjoy more than the children and would often find myself laughing at and then see the children looking at me like I was some sort of madwoman.

During the summer term this year, the kids all discovered Cartoon Network and I have to say, as much as some of the programs on there are quite good, some of them are downright weird and silly.  I would watch bits of these shows with an air of disbelief and disapproval.  I didn’t like the attitudes and the language in them at all but wondered if maybe I was getting a bit old.

The other thing that I noticed with this new wave of morning television was the effect it was having on my children.  Long gone were the days where they would spend a few minutes watching television and then bounce happily into their clothes and down to breakfast.  Oh no, what had replaced this was a surly, grumpy attitude.  Getting them to take their eyes off the screen and getting into their clothes had become a real issue and one that caused me to moan and for them to get angry every day.  They wanted breakfast in front of the TV, which never happens on my watch I can tell you. It was all becoming a bit of an effort and I realised that I had turned my children into TV watching mindless zombies.

I only had myself to blame.  It was a habit that I had got them into because I was tired and lazy first thing in the morning, but I am sure that I am not the only parent who has used to TV as a survival tactic in the mornings.  When I discussed the matter with other parents, there were quite a few who didn’t allow their kids to watch TV in the mornings and for those who had made the decision to stop, they reported a big improvement in general attitude.

With R starting middle school this year, we need to leave the house earlier so I decided that this would be a good time to start a new regime; No More Morning Television.  It was met with some disgruntlement and I told them at the beginning of the summer holidays that this was going to happen once they were back at school to give them time to get used to the idea.

So far, so good.  There have been a few moans but generally I am finding that mornings are going much more smoothly.  I did relent one morning with A when she woke up ridiculously early and I allowed her half an hour, but I am now wishing that I had implemented the rule much earlier.  They are slowly realising that there are other things to do in the morning, such as getting ready and brushing their teeth.  Breakfast has become a nice relaxed affair, not a mad rush because we are running late.  They still have TV time after school of course although it seems that Cartoon Network has stopped working on our television, I have no idea why, but they don’t miss that time in the morning.  One morning last week, they even went out and had a game of football before school which would never happened in the TV zombie days.

As for me, do I miss those early morning snuggles with my babies in front of Cbeebies? If I am honest, no I don’t.  I actually quite like having an extra hour in bed so I am quite happy to bid farewell to children’s television in the morning and anyway I can always catch up with Postman Pat on iPlayer if I feel the need.