Clifford the big red treat

As a treat tonight, I decided to see if I could find some YouTube fun for Emily. Mainly some Clifford the Big Red dog episodes or some In The Night Garden.
I found both.

We watched a couple of episodes of both shows and Emily was transfixed.
I don't want to her become a square-eyed boxhead, but I can imagine how cool it must have been for her to see Clifford come to life, having read his book cover to cover almost daily for the last few months.

BBC iPlayer for Cbeebies

Image via Wikipedia

Just in time for Emily, who's actually becoming more aware of her surroundings - including TV - is the announcement that the Beeb has launched a CBeebies-specific version of iPlayer.

It's pretty much the same CBeebies content you can get on the adult player, but "kiddied up" with big images and bright colours.

All the shows I'm sure I'll learn to hate really quickly are all readily available and when the cries of "more more more" come, you can always watch another episode right away. If anything will erode my child's sense of patience and waiting it will be the quick fix that this iPlayer will provide.

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TV make baby dumb

Everyone knows that reality TV turns your brain to mush. The conventional wisdom is that kids TV - the good stuff, the educational stuff can only help.

Having read an article at ParentCentral made me quite aware and scared that even educational, learning stuff like Sesame Street can have a detrimental effect on Emily.

"In one of the most extensive reviews of its kind, the Seattle pediatrician says infant-aimed DVDs such as Baby Einstein, and even award-winning kids' shows like Sesame Street, can do more harm than good to children under the age of 2."

Of course, my parents used the TV as a baby sitter while doing things like laundry and making dinner and I turned out OK. Just wondering if I would have turned out better than OK if I wasn't being babysat by The Count and Grover.