Do you feel frustrated by the TV shows your kids are watching? Do you want them to watch shows you feel good about them watching? In this episode we are sharing 5 questions to ask yourself to help you find the best TV shows for your kids. We also talk about our favorite kids TV shows as well as some habits to help parents be better about their own screen time.
You can listen to this podcast below or find the Parenting in Real Life Podcast on your favorite podcast app.
One of the things that sparked this topic was a meme that I saw on Instagram. It’s a mom and her kid and they’re both on their phone on a park bench and they’re sitting next to a mom and her kid and both the mom and the kid have a book in their hands. The mom with the phone turns to the mom with a book and says, “How do you get your child to read books?”
I thought this was so interesting because our kids tend to copy what we do. Since that mom was reading, her kid was choosing to read. But when our kids see us on our phones all the time, then our kids want to be on their phones all the time too. My kids are always asking for my phone or when I’m watching reels on Instagram, they want to be watching too.
We loved this quote by Erica Christakis from a Huff Post article called “What Makes a Children’s TV Show Good for Kids?” and something that she says is “When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids screen time and more about their own.”
This was interesting because I often think that our kids are on screens too much and really what they’re going to do is just mimic us. And sometimes we do have to be on screens because our job is on the computer and I make my grocery lists on my phone, etc so there’s things that I’m doing that I need to be on screens for, but if we’re just leisurely on screens all the time, I think that’s something that we have to be careful of.
phone Challenge
With this in mind, we would just challenge you to think about how much you are using your phones and screens. And maybe ask yourself how you can be a better example of what you want your kids to be doing. Is there screen free time at home? Do you put your phone away at certain times? Just some things to think about.
Something our family likes to do is a little screen time reset and we do a No Screen Challenge. We recommend doing it at least a week. We’ve done 4 weeks in a row before! And it makes a big difference. See what a No Screen Challenge looks like.
5 Questions to find the best kids tv shows
1. Is it age appropriate?
All kids are different, so it’s important to know your own child, but as you’re watching these TV shows with your kids, is it appropriate for your child?
2. Is it Engaging?
High quality shows have education, interaction and engagement and are not just pure entertainment. We find that so many shows for teens and tweens are just comedy or drama and the kids aren’t really learning anything.
Two shows that our older kids enjoyed that were educational were “Brain Child” and “The Who Was Show.” Both of these shows are on Netflix, but both no longer have new episodes. Our kids were learning something from these shows and they would even talk about it afterwards and shared what they learned with us.
3. Does it Reflect the Real World?
This one is interesting as we looked into it more. At first we really liked the idea, but then we realized that things could swing in a way that we don’t like. For example, a lot of kids shows show kids with phones at young ages. We don’t want our kids having phones before age 11 (that’s our family rule) and when they do get phones, there’s no social media or internet access, but when our kids watch these shows they feel like everyone has phones and it causes conflict.
Speaking of kids and phones, If you’re looking for a phone that is a great starter phone for kids, has no social media or Internet (unless you give them access) and can grow with your kids, then check out the Troomi phone. We have loved this phone for our oldest daughter and our second is about to get one for Christmas. Use the promo code: PARENTING for $50 off your phone.
4. Do you want to watch it?
We have a very short list of my kids’ shows that we would actually want to watch. But we have a list of some of our family favorites:
- Ruby and the Well – BYUtv
- Bluey – Disney+
- Kids Baking Championship – Food Network
- Relative Race – BYUtv
- Phineas and Ferb – Disney+
5. Are there any reed flags?
Some examples they gave of red flags are: how did the characters talk to each other? Are they not respecting their parents? How do they represent bullying? And if you don’t like something that you see, make sure you talk to your kids about it.
Something else we have seen in drama shows for tweens and teens is that the parent/child relationship is unrealistic. The parents are dumb and goofy and the kids are smart and clever and interesting. We look for shows that have good family relationships.
It can be hard with all of the streaming services available to control what your kids are watching all the time, but we encourage you to look for the best kids TV shows that align with your family values.