Kill your TV
My kids have never seen any of those shows and I think they are better for it.

North Carolina Dad's Group
http://lindsaybeans.blogspot.com
http://oneredsquirrelinstatesville.blogspot.com

We have the Nick Jr channels, and Dora and Diego are cool, but only because my 6 year old learned more spanish from them then I can remember from taking it for 4 years in high school. She can count in spanish, knows all the colors, numbers, etc. I like the backyardigans only because they encourage imagination, and the theme song is catchy. You mentioned Thomas the Train. I swear, if I had to watch an entire episode, I'd put a gun to my head. If I ever hear "you are a very useful engine" one more time in my life, it will be too soon. What you really want to watch out for is that damn spongebob. My daughter loves it now, and it drives me crazy. She even laughs like him, and will talk like him at times, and I wish I would have never turned it on. I turned to it because it was more adult like then some of the other stuff she wanted to see. At the time I think the choice was either spongebob or teletubbies. I'm not sure what I'd choose right now. I know that if I see someone in a stupid costume with a coat hanger on thier head, eating this slop called "tubby custard", and a tv in thier stomach, I just might puke.

In line with what redsquirrel said, but maybe not so drastic as killing anything.

If your TV is like mine, it is equipped with feature usually found on the front, side or top panel or on the hand-held "remote control" called by the names "power" or "on-off" button. Try using that!

Toward bedtime we find reading works well. TV tends to over-stimulate kids. (not matter what they are watching!)

just my .02

but don't at all feel offended by #2 (not really anti-PC) or Matt (I mean, with all the stuff to do in Statesville, NC, who needs TV . . . I'm here all week, Matt). Between 7am and 8am, if the kids watch a Backyardigans followed by an episode of the Berenstain Bears while I drink my two mugs of coffee and read the paper, I'm quite happy. But, like Dave's son, I am already finding that my 4 year boy loses interest in the shows quickly and typically disappears to, coincidentally, his own train area for the rest of the early morning.

Noggin (or recorded Noggins, or On Demand Noggins or Sprouts or whatever) typically will make a second appearance for 30 minutes at lunch and then perhaps 30 minutes while I prepare dinner. Really, it's more Dora for my 18 month old more than anything. My son would prefer to do puzzles, play outside, etc. (I already let him go out back on his own), though he will sit through a 25 minute Scooby Doo. I will totally admit to actually liking some of the music numbers Noggin puts on between shows. I've always had a thing for "hippy chicks" and many of the girls are, imho, quite hot. My girl sings along, I stare along . . . win-win.

Unfortunately, our tv is on just about all day, but I've been getting into the habit of changing it to a music channel. No videos, just basically the radio on tv. My daughter is just now figuring out that the music channels are boring, and they never end!! No commercials, no new shows, so when I say she's had enough tv, I switch it over. She's slowly getting weaned off it and going to do other things, plus I like having music in the background without all the commercials.

So what's your take on Sesame Street? I recently started recording them all because my 16 mth old gets a kick out of me playing with the stuffed sesame street characters we have, and she thinks its funny to see them on tv. Plus, I remember watching it when I was little. Although, mainly all I remember is watching it with my dad and him calling it "the Maria show" because he though Maria was hot !! I think she's still on it, and aging very well I might add...lol

"(I) was tying to see if anyone else felt the same way about Noggin."

Well in that case, YOU ARE WRONG! Bwahahahaha! Just kidding, of course. And trust me, when any of us (the two kids or myself) are sick, the TV is definitely on a bit more than usual. As for Noggin, I actually think The Backyardigans is a remarkably clever show. They use their imaginations to take them to places and times rooted in some history all the while singing songs that are plays off of popular music (sometimes classical, sometimes rock). I could listen to Alicia Keys sing the "Boinga" song on the radio. Mose A. Moose -- well, let me just say that if you could hear my 18 month old try and sing along with "Beside the Seaside" you'd admire Mose a bit more. Noggin -- without commercials or scary imagery of any kind -- is a good channel.

Sesame Street -- awesome. Sprout On Demand always has 10-12 that you can throw on at a moments notice.

We (the parents) record what we think is appropriate for him to watch - right now it's the Backyardigans or Mama Mirabelle's, which isn't on very much. He doesn't watch anything on TV, unless the Backyardigans is on live TV. And, I second JIMPMC's suggestions. We follow the same schedule/order.

Yeah, I've kind of got a thing for Laurie Berkner too.

double post

I would personally like to jab my own eye with a dull knife rather than watch Dora, Wubzy, Diego, or the Backyardigans. That being said, my 3 YO loves them. She really only gets them about 1 hour a day. Outside of Noggin she loves The Little Mermaid. I would ridicule TV watching, but because of Dora, my daughter calls the moon "luna" and when she wants something opened she says "abra", even though she knows the english words. To me this is priceless, and educational.

When the shows are off, she reenacts them (I forgot Little Bear) to perfection. I hate them, but I am sure she is not fond of Sportscenter either. I guess we tolerate what others love for a reason...

I was an early TiVo adopter and highly recommend it. With our first, we were able to pass over all the commercials and avoided the constant "I want that" that we'd hear from other kids. Also allows you to watch more adult programs and skip over questionable parts. We are big commercial skippers - can't say enough good things about that. In fact, I love to watch American Gladiators but despise the hoo-rah stuff between events - so it only takes me about 25 minutes to watch an 1-hour episode :) DVR's are good too but the extra programming features make a difference. You can say the same about SageTV, MythTV, etc. I'm starting to look into these because they have better internet connectivity than TiVo currently has.

Since my son is now older and can control the TiVo, we see more commercials and generally watch more TV. I watch the least in my family. My wife, unfortunately, is a huge Law&Order fan. My daughter is into Spongebob bigtime - the rest of us have gotten tired of reruns. That's a downside of a DVR - you can watch the same program over and over and over, etc. However, we're all still big fans of the Sponge - the quality of the humor and writing is much better than most kids shows. Same goes for Jimmy Neutron. On the other side, Fairly Oddparents is grating and epileptic.

My daughter also loves to watch Backyardigans. I've never noticed the Moose-A-Moose thing, I guess because we just record the show rather than have the channel on for extended times. Not to make it sound like you've got it on all day - we watch mostly recordings and not much live.

Calliou is gental and PC it makes "Arthur" look like "Fight Club."

Be Seeing You.

Having been way guilty of giving the "brainless babysitter" (TV) too much time in our house, I can now say the library rules. My local library has story time a couple days a week, as well as a plain old play time once a week with crafts, snacks etc. Hopefully, yours will be as useful as ours for assisting in using your time wisely.

As far as programs go, too much of any one of those mentioned annoys me these days, with SpongeBoob SquareAss at the top of my list. Big shout out to Animal Planet's Zaboomafoo though. Even I can watch 2 of those in a row without wanting to wring someone's neck. But most of those other animal shows are too specific--I mean how many snake guys do we really need on television? Most of these other twits are just way too interested in their own delusions of cleverness and far too over-caffeinated for my tastes.

But that's just me, I could be wrong. The real acid test is when your kids think the guy's a nitwit, then you're pretty sure it isn't just an adult thing.

I think "Caillou" is French and roughly translates to "whiny little brat destined to be the poster boy for wedgies and getting stuffed into a locker."

Alby
Making it look difficult. Living the dream.

I have a very, very strict "no Caillou" policy in my house. Nothing pisses me off quicker than hearing that ***damn voice! The Hoobs are also on my short list.

I try to maintain my sanity by regulating the TV, but we do have a routine where there is some TV zombie time. And there is some messed up show on noggin called Lazytime/town or something like that I've only seen parts of it twice, but WTF!?!

Oh man, my daughter went through the lazytown phase and that was all she wanted to watch. At first it was wierd, but they do teach about fitness and not being a couch potato. The coolest part is that sportacus guy and some of the moves he can do. Wow. I guess he was some kind of gymnist champion or something. The most impressive thing I've seen him do is a one handed push-up. Some of you might not think that is so special, but when I say one handed, I mean one handed, and NOTHING MORE touching the ground!! This guy would do a normal push up and hold himself up, then go to one hand under his chest, then move his legs off to the sides and off the ground!! Wow. Not too many guys impress me, but I have to say, that one did!!