New Zealand's Top Mummy Blogger Parenting Travel Blog Family Screen Time

Positive Screen Time – Nixon and Dinosaur Train

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New Zealand's Top Mummy Blogger Parenting Travel Blog Family Screen Time

Screen time, device time, iPad use, tablet time, TV time – whatever you call it,  letting your kids use a screen, be it large or small immediately places a target on your back and immediately opens you up to judgement by Sancti-Mummy’s everywhere.  Screen time gets such a bad rap these days, it’s almost as high up the parental hit-list as sugar and processed cheese ::::  heavens-to-betsy! ::::

But you guys know me right?  You know I love sugar (in moderation of course!), I adore processed cheese (actually ALL cheese) and I absolutely LOVE me some screen time – what blogger doesn’t?  It seems to me that the use of devices or amount of time spent in front of a screen by kids is like anything else, when used with moderation and discretion there are no problems.  

But let’s be honest, sometimes I use screen time with reckless abandon!  There are days when I have more than one deadline, the kids are exhausted by 4.30pm and will actually disembowel each other if forced to play together and I just don’t have time to deal with that mess.  So I let them have at it.  Play Xbox!  Watch weirdos unwrap shit on YouTube, catch Pokemon, I DON’T CARE, just enjoy it mmmmkay boys?

New Zealand's Top Mummy Blogger Parenting Travel Blog Family Screen TimeI’m joking of course, that pretty much happens everyday (!), but there is a shining light in the dark, dark tunnel of screen time, and that light, dear readers, belongs to Dinosaur Train.

Not just his favourite show, Dinosaur Train is Nixon’s obsession, fuelling an insatiable need for more and more knowledge, more facts, more polysyllabic names down-pat, more very expensive Schleich dinos and more and more dinosaur books.

It’s freaking awesome!  Ethan went through the same ‘phase’ that lasted 9 years (!!), but his energy was focussed on sharks and whales and we struggled to find age appropriate shows that kept up with his vast knowledge.  Dinosaur Train is ticking all the boxes for us and Nix;

  • Catchy theme song – check
  • Science based – check
  • Historically accurate – check
  • Factual – check
  • There’s a REAL paleontologist that recaps the archaeological evidence at the end of each show
  • Produced by The Jim Henson Company = awesome – check
  • Engaging and non-mum-guilt inducing – check check CHECK!

New Zealand's Top Mummy Blogger Parenting Travel Blog Family Screen Time

In a nutshell, a Pteranodon family and their adopted T Rex son Buddy explore the Mesozoic aboard the Dinosaur Train, meeting and learning (in great detail!) about other dinosaurs.  The show is an educational coup for parents and kids alike and it’s single-handedly fostered a passion in Nixon that we are all loving.  Dave and I are now Parental Grade Experts in dinosaurs (as well as sharks and whales) and Ethan and Nixon have something in common that they both love despite their 8.5 year age gap.

We watch Dinosaur Train (every day!) on Netflix and have no trouble with internet lag now that we’ve upgraded to Slingshot’s unlimited VDSL – I have zero time/tolerance for monitoring how much bandwidth we have left!   Nixie’s other dino faves available on Netflix are; Gon, Dinosaur King, Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Monsters and DinoTrux.

Happy Netflix-ing!

New Zealand's Top Mummy Blogger Parenting Travel Blog Family Screen Time

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