Today was a pretty quiet day and was interesting for its lack of dvds. Since late last year we have unregulated a portable dvd player with our 5 yr old daughter… so she can watch it when ever she wants. We have gone through patches where she has not watched any but it has been because we are camping or travelling so lots of exciting options.

Today was relatively uneventful with our daughter playing with mice, cleaning up, playing in the bath (for a long time), going to the beach, making pipe cleaner rings, playing with dolls and reading books (or us reading her books at least). She did not even think about watching a dvd. For a child who last year, when we had no tv or dvd player, seemed obsessed by it and now to have it available on tap but choose not to watch is pretty amazing to me even now.

Ive noticed when she does watch she tends to come from one of two perspectives: entertainment or comfort. The entertainment is simple, it can be fun & interesting… but obviously now it has less mystique than when we effectively banned/ limited it.

The other is comfort. Watching a dvd for our daughter is occasionaly what in Solter’s Aware Parenting terms would be called a “control pattern”. That is she is feeling upset, insecure or emotional and she uses the dvd to “deaden” or supress that emotion. Obviously it is this second option that we are on the look out for as we want to encourage her to express all her emotions… including her anger, confusion and insecurity.

If it were not dvds it would be something else but it is interesting that we can see two such different motivations & approaches to it.

For my part I am still quite happy not to have free to air tv let alone cable… no requests for it so far and we are making sure the dvd library is growing consistently to avoid the need for it.

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