‘No TV in my house’: Aussie mum’s drastic parenting move
An Aussie mum has revealed how she made the drastic decision to ban an item that many consider a parenting essential, and never looked back.
When Sydney woman Kate Heussler was growing up, the TV was a constant in the background.
“My parents were kind of slaves to it,” she says. “They’d come home, drink, have the TV on 24/7.”
She knew she wanted things to be different when she became a mother, so when her marriage ended shortly after giving birth to her first child, Penelope, Ms Heussler decided to make a drastic change and get rid of the TV entirely.
“TV isn’t necessarily the problem,” she said. “It’s like having a dog sleeping on the bed - it’s all about how you approach it. But the reality, I think, is that people are just so brain-numb and so disassociated from reality that they need a television in order to soothe, and they don’t realise it.
“A lot of people are sitting in traffic on their phones, or they come home and the TV is on and the TV is on - I mean some of my friends have TVs in every bedroom! I previously lived with a partner who had a TV in the bathroom.”
That realisation of the impact of that big screen at home, combined with the many smaller screens she and her family faced every day, led to a big lifestyle choice.
Australia is in the grips of a mental health crisis, and people are struggling to know who to turn to, especially our younger generations. Can We Talk? is a News Corp awareness campaign, in partnership with Medibank, equipping Aussies with the skills needed to have the most important conversation of their life.
“I just decided there would be no TV in my house for as long as I live there,” Ms Heussler said.
“In the last seven years I haven’t been partnered, so that’s been very easy to maintain with my daughter. She doesn’t know any different.”
Ms Heussler believes the decision has had a huge effect, attributing her daughter’s “incredible social skills” to the fact that she hasn’t grown up around TV.
“She also seems to have avoided the common developmental hurdles I’ve seen other kids go through,” she said.
“When people talk to me about the ‘terrible twos’, I genuinely cannot relate.”
Australian public health guidelines (part of the federal government’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines), prescribe clear limits on recreational screen time for children. The current recommendations are: no screen time for children under two years old; a maximum of one hour per day for children aged two to five; and no more than two hours per day of sedentary recreational screen time for young people aged five to 17 (excluding schoolwork).
Experts caution that excessive screen use is linked to poorer outcomes in physical health, cognitive development, mental wellbeing, and sleep patterns, though data suggests a substantial majority of Australian children and young people are exceeding these limits.
Concerns about excessive screen time in younger children mirror expert warnings about the impact of more interactive forms of screen time, specifically social media, on teens as they develop.
While definitive statements of causation are still being developed, there is specific longitudinal research that strongly suggests a link between early childhood screen use patterns and adverse developmental and mental health outcomes that manifest in adolescence and young adulthood.
New research from News Corp Australia and Medibank’s shows Gen Z Aussies (the youngest cohort included) are the least confident in managing their mental wellbeing.
The report showed social media in particular fuels daily stress, with almost a third of Gen Z reporting negative impacts from extensive social media use, which includes doom scrolling and comparing themselves to others, leading to increased daily stress and anxiety.
It’s something that continues to shape Ms Heussler’s approach to screens with her daughter, who is now seven.
“Now that Penelope is older, we focus on a very low-screen lifestyle, instead of no-screens,” she said.
“When it comes to social media, I’m never going to tell her it’s an outright no, but I might tell her that it’s something we won’t look at until she’s old enough to handle it, and then, I’ll make sure we have a lot of conversations about how it might look for her to engage with it in a healthy way.
“I was very keen to teach independence and for her not to be dependent on any device to soothe or self-regulate. Now that she’s a bit older, I’m happy to give her an iPad for half an hour while I’m on a Zoom call for her to watch something educational, but I am careful to prioritise teaching her independence. From day one, that was my goal.
“She can get into the cupboards herself, and she can open the fridge herself, and she can now cook for herself - obviously under supervision. She is really confident and I’ve worked hard to model that for her.”
Ms Heussler says her approach is in no way intended as a judgement call against parents who rely more heavily on screens, but rather something she came by as a personal parenting philosophy in line with her own values.
“Every family is different,” she said. “And what works for us might not work for other parents, but I think Penelope is an incredibly responsible and socially aware kid, who is really resilient. I put a lot of that down to all the connection and play we were able to have without the TV or screens pulling her attention away.”
Originally published as ‘No TV in my house’: Aussie mum’s drastic parenting move
