Am I such a horrible mother????

I watched a show on TV about raising kids, please don't ask me the title because much like names and directions....I simply suck that way! Memory is not something I have, I have to write lists, I have to write notes to remind me to write notes...yes indeed I am that bad!!!

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ANYWAY, I was watching this show and this psychologist or psychiatrist....some kind of psych-guy was talking about kids and electronics and how parents allow their children too much access. His theory is that kids who play video games and watch TV don't like to read and don't have as active of an imagination and are fatter and lazier than the kids who don't watch TV or play video games or are limited to no more than 1 hour a day of such activities. He even went so far as to say the kids who are limited or restricted from those electronics are smarter than the kids who are allowed to access these things whenever they please and the problem is only worse if kids are allowed these things in their first 2 years of life. His opinion is if kids weren't allowed any TV or video games in their first 2 years of life they would be far better off.....I beg to differ!

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See my kid has always been allowed to watch TV, when he was a baby he HAD to be held which did not work well for mom trying to get in a shower and wash her hair....so yes I put him in his swing and I turned on the TV and put on Rolie Polie Olie and ran for the shower before he totally lost his mind....and it worked! He loved Rolie Polie Olie the most so that 20 minutes became moms shower time. As he grew I allowed him to watch Sesame Street, when he was 6 months old he discovered Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and those became his favorite programs to watch. I would record the Wheel in the evening so that I could put him in his pack-n-play in the morning, turn that show on and grab a quick shower. Very quickly I realized that the Wheel was paying off and my 9 month old started pointing out letters CORRECTLY! 9 months old...I'm not kidding you! At 18 months old he read his first word...STOP. It was amazing, we were coming home from the playground, I was pulling him in his wagon and he started yelling for me to stop. I stopped and asked him why I needed to stop and he pointed up to the stop sign and said

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"S-T-O-P spells stop! Mama stop!"

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After telling my mother-in-law and a few other people this amazing news they said he was just recognizing the sign shape, not actually reading so I put a bunch of 4 letter "S" words on a piece of paper and asked Orion to point to the word stop...which he immediately did...then he proceeded to read the rest of the words on the paper too. After that he continued to amaze me....a year later, when he was 2 1/2 years old he was overheard on the baby monitor reading Harry Potter books to his cat and actually getting the words right!

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So you see, I don't know if my kid is just really smart or if that psych-guy was wrong, perhaps if I never let my child watch TV as a baby he would be even smarter...perhaps I somehow dumbed him up by allowing such a thing...or perhaps I knew what he was watching and encouraged his learning and helped him be smarter because I only allowed programs that encouraged learning. With Rolie Polie Olie he learned about friendships, shapes, colors and numbers. With Wheel of Fortune he learned all his letters and how they turn into words if you put them into the correct order. With Jeopardy he learned some random facts that maybe he'll never remember but perhaps someday it will actually pop into place. Even today, as he plays video games on his Nintendo DS, computer or x-box 90% of the time he's reading instructions, learning without realizing it, working on his eye/hand coordination.

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So am I really a bad parent holding my child back by allowing him these modern electronics??? I tend to think NO, I am not. I think it's quality, not quantity, that truly matters.