I never thought I’d be one of those Mama’s who plonks their child in front of the TV for half an hour or even an hour and half sometimes to entertain them. Before I had Littlebit, I’ll be honest, I looked down on that kind of parenting. Thinking it was an easy way out and uber lazy. I couldn’t have been more wrong and here’s why…
I LOVE CBeebies. It is the UK’s most loved and watched channel for children under six, and that is because, I believe, everything on CBeebies is made with learning in mind.
The programmes they air all have something to teach, be it:
* Makaton sign language with Mr Tumble on Something Special and bringing children with disabilities onto mainstream TV, thus teaching our littlies that they’re not so different from them
* learning about growing and nurturing vegetables with Mr Bloom’s nursery
* teaching them to vocalise themselves and get into rhythm and rhyme with Raa Raa the noisy lion. This is one of Littlebit’s favourites, probably because he’s so noisy, as is she
* giving them ideas about the value of family with Baby Jake
* learning about emotions and friendship with Waybuloo
and these are just some of our favourites.
They also offer a fantastic website, well two actually. Their main CBeebies website which has loads of fun stuff for kids to play about with and also CBeebies Grown-ups which is all about unlocking all the magic that is within CBeebies – both online and on air. As grown-ups we may wish to know a little more about what CBeebies can offer, and chat to other grown-ups too. The Grown-ups site allows us to do that. It’s fantastic.
A good example of how CBeebies and their website resources can help that I’ve come across recently is on the support section of the Grown-ups website. I’ve been a little worried about Littlebit’s walking, or lack of. It’s not that she can’t or won’t. She just doesn’t have the confidence to do it without holding tightly to something, be it me or her walker. She can clearly do it, she just needs to build up her confidence. So, I was mooching through the website yesterday and came across the ‘Moving with confidence‘ article. It’s brilliant, it suggests difference CBeebies programmes that Littlebit can watch that might help to build her confidence, such as Lazytown, Waybuloo and Boogie Beebies. Genius!
That leads me on to another reason I love CBeebies so much. They listen. Earlier this week I read a blog they had posted about the changes they were making to the bedtime hour. Adding in Driver Dan and altering the format of Waybuloo. Now Waybuloo is one of our failsafes. Littlebit has her tea with us and then we all move over to the sofas, she stays in her high chair to let her dinner go down and we all sit together and watch Waybuloo. So the news of these upcoming changes didn’t go down too well with hubby and me. Especially as it now seemed there would be a voiceover to it and the length of the programme would be cut.
It seems we were right to be dubious about it too as really, it was terrible. Poor Dave Lamb of Come Dine with Me voiceover fame was doing the narration. I’m not sure if it was meant to be sarcastic or not, but that’s how it came over. The wonderfully relaxing, calming Waybuloo which was perfect for little ones to watch before bed was now laughable and certainly no longer relaxing. Twitter was going mad. Facebook was going mad. It appeared that all the parents I know thought the same too. But, the BBC listened. They posted the following statement on the blog the next day:
UPDATE FROM CBEEBIES TEAM: Thanks for all your comments – its great to see how passionate you are about the show. We’ve listened to all your feedback and have decided to revert to the original format for the show in Bedtime from tonight onwards. Thanks for all your views – keep them coming!
Never before have I known a company care so much about what their clients, in this case viewers, think. They clearly really do though and that impresses me.
So, I am one of those Mamas. Littlebit watches at least 30 minutes of telly a day. Sometimes up to 2 hours in a couple of 1 hour stints if I need to contain her while I work, or iron or whatever. She enjoys it, she learns from it so I don’t think there’s any harm if I’m honest.
Plus, I am a bit in love with Justin Fletcher, aka Mr Tumble. He’s ace!
Oh and p.s. Not Even a Bag of Sugar has also blogged on this subject here 
Great minds eh?
I agree; childrens tv is great! I also had some preconceptions pre-bebe, but found it definitely has a place as long as it doesn’t become all consuming and like all things in moderation. We don’t see an awful lot of ‘older’ toddlers/pre-schoolers and I think it’s helpful for Wriggles to see them in some shape or form to see how children communicate and move (another non-walker here) as they grow. Am a little bit addicted to ‘Show Me, Show Me’
ps. my childminder told me that when her children were at that not walking stage she used to give them pegs to hold onto and hold onto the other end to support them…when she felt confident they were well on their way she would let go and they would wander round with their arms still in the air holding pegs none the wiser. Hmmmmmm!
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