Am I being paranoid?

My wife and I (we both work 9 to 5 jobs) are lucky to have someone
that is able to care for our child during the day, a very good friend
that we have known for years. She's about to hit 50, never had a child
of her own, and taking care of a 6 month old is tough for one person.

So here are my questions:

She lets our 6 month old watch a puppet show on Sesame Street for 5
minutes tops, we're ok with that. That's all the TV he gets. When I'm
home watching NFL games on Sunday, sometimes he'll look at the TV but
he never seems interested. Is this going to hurt him? She's not
keeping him in front of the TV all day long.

She gave him a lick of a lollipop one time when she had to go to the
bank. Maybe it was a couple licks, maybe just one. We said no more,
and she understood, but is that a big deal?

I have my own "issues" - when I feel out of control i get real
irritable/edgy and I tend to freak out about things.

Is a little tv here and there and a lick of a lollipop here or there
going to hurt our 6 month old?

she takes great care of him - he's always happy to see her, he smiles
all the time , he does have "meltdowns" with her more than with us, so
we think he misses us or something because he just fussies a lot more.

but she is great with him, lets him play, crawl, she reads to him, she
doesn't leave him a lone for a minute, but it does get tiring on her
and her back, so sometimes he has to be left on the floor a little
longer than he wants only because she's constantly picking him up and
down (we coddle him a lot).

i just feel out of control and want the best for him and wonder if i
worry too much about these small things (tv, lollipop) and i need to
relax more and know he's in good hands?

On Nov 28, 1:14 pm, Psalm Nuclei wrote:
she takes great care of him - he's always happy to see her, he smiles
all the time , he does have "meltdowns" with her more than with us, so
we think he misses us or something because he just fussies a lot more.

but she is great with him, lets him play, crawl, she reads to him, she
doesn't leave him a lone for a minute, but it does get tiring on her
and her back, so sometimes he has to be left on the floor a little
longer than he wants only because she's constantly picking him up and
down (we coddle him a lot).

i just feel out of control and want the best for him and wonder if i
worry too much about these small things (tv, lollipop) and i need to
relax more and know he's in good hands?

I think worrying is part of job description as a parent. I can tell
you not to worry but I don't know if you'll stop

I believe that kids should learn how to entertain themselves. If the
child always looks to someone else to play with, it's going to be hard
on both the kid and the caretaker. So leaving him alone with toys by
himself (under supervision) is actually recommended. Same goes for
sleeping. Kids should be able to fall asleep by themselves. Otherwise
every time they wake up in the middle of the night, they'll need
someone to put them back to sleep... but that's another thread.

I don't like my kids to watch lot of TV but few minutes of TV at that
age won't do any harm. At that age, they are more interested in the
patterns and lights and moving images on TV.

On Nov 28, 2:10 pm, Psalm Nuclei wrote:
My wife and I (we both work 9 to 5 jobs) are lucky to have someone
that is able to care for our child during the day, a very good friend
that we have known for years. She's about to hit 50, never had a child
of her own, and taking care of a 6 month old is tough for one person.

So here are my questions:

She lets our 6 month old watch a puppet show on Sesame Street for 5
minutes tops, we're ok with that. That's all the TV he gets. When I'm
home watching NFL games on Sunday, sometimes he'll look at the TV but
he never seems interested. Is this going to hurt him? She's not
keeping him in front of the TV all day long.

I don't think there is much evidence that watching television reduces
a child's intelligence. For infants, if listening to people talk is a
good thing, as many sources say, maybe hearing the "talk" on TV has
benefits. Raw scores on IQ tests have risen almost continually over
the years (the "Flynn effect"), and are higher now than before TV was
invented. Some people have speculated that watching complex television
shows can make people smarter http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma..._the_flyn.html
..

The problem with TV IMO is not that it is intrinsically bad but that
it take can take time away from more worthwhile pursuits. Watching TV
won't make Junior dumb, but it won't teach him algebra, either. But 5
minutes or even 1 hour a day of TV would not have a substantial
"crowding out" affect.

If you look at international comparisons of students on tests,
American children do pretty well in the early grades but fall behind
by high school. This suggests to me that the parenting practices of
most middle class Americans are not impairing kids intellectually.
Maybe you are being paranoid .

In article ,
Psalm Nuclei says...

she takes great care of him - he's always happy to see her, he smiles
all the time , he does have "meltdowns" with her more than with us, so
we think he misses us or something because he just fussies a lot more.

but she is great with him, lets him play, crawl, she reads to him, she
doesn't leave him a lone for a minute, but it does get tiring on her
and her back, so sometimes he has to be left on the floor a little
longer than he wants only because she's constantly picking him up and
down (we coddle him a lot).

i just feel out of control and want the best for him and wonder if i
worry too much about these small things (tv, lollipop) and i need to
relax more and know he's in good hands?

My OB-Gyn had the best advice I've heard:

"Babies are made to live in caves."

So - turn down the heat, light a fire, and throw some bones in the corner ;-)

No really, babies grow up healthy and happy in all kinds of cultures and all
kinds of situations. The 50 year old lady sounds fine to me; it's more of a
matter if she is communicating well with you.

Banty

In article ,
Psalm Nuclei says...

My wife and I (we both work 9 to 5 jobs) are lucky to have someone
that is able to care for our child during the day, a very good friend
that we have known for years. She's about to hit 50, never had a child
of her own, and taking care of a 6 month old is tough for one person.

So here are my questions:

She lets our 6 month old watch a puppet show on Sesame Street for 5
minutes tops, we're ok with that. That's all the TV he gets. When I'm
home watching NFL games on Sunday, sometimes he'll look at the TV but
he never seems interested. Is this going to hurt him? She's not
keeping him in front of the TV all day long.

She gave him a lick of a lollipop one time when she had to go to the
bank. Maybe it was a couple licks, maybe just one. We said no more,
and she understood, but is that a big deal?

I have my own "issues" - when I feel out of control i get real
irritable/edgy and I tend to freak out about things.

Is a little tv here and there and a lick of a lollipop here or there
going to hurt our 6 month old?

I don't see any actual harm in any of that. I might mention that she go light
on the candy.

As far as your TV watching, it's the best possible. I tried to get my son's
first word to be "Elway", but he insisted on food and family members as his
first words ::sigh::

Banty

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:05:46 -0800 (PST), Beliavsky wrote:

If you look at international comparisons of students on tests,
American children do pretty well in the early grades but fall behind
by high school. This suggests to me that the parenting practices of
most middle class Americans are not impairing kids intellectually.
Maybe you are being paranoid .

I wonder who they test when they do these tests. I wonder if American kids
do well early on because all the kids get tested early on. I wonder if we
do worse later because we test everyone, including special ed kids, while
kids in some other countries can't even attend high school unless their
parents have money or they have passed rigorous tests. Do they test the
kids in other countries like they do in the USA? Does it include kids
tracked into trade schools and non-academic persuits? Maybe kids in some
of those countries have a very high drop-out rate in high school and you're
only testing the cream of the crop.

Psalm Nuclei wrote:
My wife and I (we both work 9 to 5 jobs) are lucky to have someone
that is able to care for our child during the day, a very good friend
that we have known for years. She's about to hit 50, never had a child
of her own, and taking care of a 6 month old is tough for one person.

So here are my questions:

She lets our 6 month old watch a puppet show on Sesame Street for 5
minutes tops, we're ok with that. That's all the TV he gets. When I'm
home watching NFL games on Sunday, sometimes he'll look at the TV but
he never seems interested. Is this going to hurt him? She's not
keeping him in front of the TV all day long.

She gave him a lick of a lollipop one time when she had to go to the
bank. Maybe it was a couple licks, maybe just one. We said no more,
and she understood, but is that a big deal?

I have my own "issues" - when I feel out of control i get real
irritable/edgy and I tend to freak out about things.

Is a little tv here and there and a lick of a lollipop here or there
going to hurt our 6 month old?

Can you come up with any credible reason why it would?
Sure, the recommendations are no tv for infants, but I'd be shocked
if anyone can come up with any evidence or reason why that little
tv could have a negative effect. And while lollipops certainly
aren't recommended food for an infant, they're little more than
pure sugar, which is pretty darned benign in moderate quantities.
It's not anything likely to trigger allergies (maybe any artificial
colorings or something, but not the sugar), and the baby' already
6 months.
Next to the time in utero, this is the most control you'll
ever have over your child. I think it would be a good idea to
learn to relax a bit, or the next eighteen years are going to
be really rough! That doesn't mean you shouldn't have standards,
but honing your ability to tell the big deals from the small
potatoes is likely to make you much more effective on the
things that are really important (not to mention allowing you
to retain a bit more of your sanity).
As the old saying goes, if everything is important,
then in reality, nothing is important.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Beliavsky wrote:
On Nov 28, 2:10 pm, Psalm Nuclei wrote:
My wife and I (we both work 9 to 5 jobs) are lucky to have someone
that is able to care for our child during the day, a very good friend
that we have known for years. She's about to hit 50, never had a child
of her own, and taking care of a 6 month old is tough for one person.

So here are my questions:

She lets our 6 month old watch a puppet show on Sesame Street for 5
minutes tops, we're ok with that. That's all the TV he gets. When I'm
home watching NFL games on Sunday, sometimes he'll look at the TV but
he never seems interested. Is this going to hurt him? She's not
keeping him in front of the TV all day long.

I don't think there is much evidence that watching television reduces
a child's intelligence.

But there is evidence that it is undesirable enough that
pretty much every body that has evaluated the research suggests
that no tv is appropriate for infants (and that the whole "Mozart
effect"/Baby Einstein thing is pretty much bogus).

For infants, if listening to people talk is a
good thing, as many sources say, maybe hearing the "talk" on TV has
benefits. Raw scores on IQ tests have risen almost continually over
the years (the "Flynn effect"), and are higher now than before TV was
invented.

However, researchers don't believe that that means that
people really are smarter than they were before. Current leading
theories seem to suggest that what has changed is that we
look at the world in different ways such that some of the
cognitive skills that are tested on IQ tests are more salient
and practiced in life today than they were previously. The
rise in scores has been concentrated in a few areas that are
particularly susceptible to these things (like categorization).

Some people have speculated that watching complex television
shows can make people smarter http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ma..._the_flyn.html
.

Maybe, but there is utterly no evidence that this
works in infants, whose brains are in a different stage.

Again, I don't think 5 minutes of tv a day is going
to be harmful at all, but I think it's a huuuuuuge and unproven
stretch to suggest that watching tv is beneficial, especially
to infants, and I think the bulk of research suggests that there
are negatives for infants.

Best wishes,
Ericka

toypup wrote:
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:05:46 -0800 (PST), Beliavsky wrote:

If you look at international comparisons of students on tests,
American children do pretty well in the early grades but fall behind
by high school. This suggests to me that the parenting practices of
most middle class Americans are not impairing kids intellectually.
Maybe you are being paranoid .

I wonder who they test when they do these tests. I wonder if American kids
do well early on because all the kids get tested early on. I wonder if we
do worse later because we test everyone, including special ed kids, while
kids in some other countries can't even attend high school unless their
parents have money or they have passed rigorous tests. Do they test the
kids in other countries like they do in the USA? Does it include kids
tracked into trade schools and non-academic persuits? Maybe kids in some
of those countries have a very high drop-out rate in high school and you're
only testing the cream of the crop.

There are boatloads of these studies, and they are
done with many different methodologies. Some of the studies are
apples to apples, and some aren't. There are differences, even
with the apples-to-apples tests, but that isn't particularly
surprising since different countries have different priorities,
different curricula, and different expectations.

Best wishes,
Ericka