‘Parents should give themselves a break’: the guilt-free children's TV guide

Screen time rules gone out the window? Don’t worry, say the experts – just point them to quality contentThere can be few parents who haven’t, in the last 11 months, snapped the television on in desperation, so that it can do a bit of childcare, or bring a temporary halt to the endless requests for food. In the first lockdown, with no formal home-learning to do, my children watched hours of telly, sometimes on iPads, while their father and I attempted to work. And when we weren’t worrying about the pandemic, or money, or everything, we worried about whether it was melting their brains.“I think particularly now, parents should cut themselves a break,” says Jackie Edwards, who runs the BFI’s Young Audiences Content Fund, a pilot scheme to invest in quality children’s programming, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. “Parents shouldn’t feel guilty about them watching a bit more TV – because I bloody well know I am watching more.” Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/mar/06/parents-should-give-themselves-a-break-guilt-free-childrens-tv-guide #children's_tv #television_&_radio #culture #education #cbeebies #netflix #disney+ #media #channel_4 #channel_5 #television_industry #coronavirus