Q: My 19 months old son watches a particular music channel on television for at least 6 to 7 hours daily. He identifies the channel and if we change it, he starts crying and becomes normal only when we reset the channel or take him outside. If the TV is switched off he even asks to switch it on and tune the channel. Earlier, the average time to watch was around 1 hour daily. Please advise.

A:Seven hours of TV watching is, in my view, too long even for an adult. For a child, not yet two years, it is excessive. I don’t know how this could have happened. You will have to break the child out of the habit. Do it gradually. Introduce playmates, new toys, toys to manipulate, clay to knead and make small animals and so on. TV watching is said to be bad for the eyes and for general state of health. Doing everything the child wants is not good child rearing. As parents, we have to set the limits and those limits should be defined by common sense. Now is the time to start weaning your child away from his favourite TV programme.