A new survey by Turner's Boomerang (DStv 302) channel confirms that the lives of 4 to 7-year old kids are one unending party - literally - as almost half spend up to 2 hours per week at birthday parties.
Turner's Boomerang conducted the marketing survey under 500 South African parents of kids aged between 4 and 7 - its core audience - looking into the importance of downtime and humour.
The survey revealed 48% of parents of kids in this age bracket said that their kids have between 4 and 7 hours of commitments, activities and social events in a normal week. In Johannesburg and Pretoria this rises to 54%.
More than 30% said their 4 to 7-year-olds have up to 1,5 hours per week of school homework and more than 40% have up to an hour per week of housework or chores.
About 40% also have up to 2 hours per week of playdates with friends, with almost 50% spending up to 2 hours per week at birthday parties.
Playing with friends or siblings, playing with family and watching TV are the moments when parents said their child tends to laugh most.
Watching TV is the top activity kids would choose for downtime at night and during wet weather – and 95% of 4 to 7-year-olds would choose to watch cartoons over any other genre to help them relax.
About a quarter of the sample said their child mainly gets their humour from TV.
When asked about their child watching TV programmes that are not educational, 42% of parents said they're okay with it but don't encourage it – however, when asked about the benefits, 64% said that it allows their kids to develop a sense of humour, imagination and creativity.
"Boomerang offers kids a safe space and time to relax, laugh – and be kids," says Julien Borde, the head of channels for kids and general entertainment for Turner Africa, France, French speaking territories and Israel.
"The time between four and seven years is when kids’ lives start to get a little more serious, and we want to provide them with a qualitative line-up that is filled with non-stop moments of pure enjoyment"
"This recent study gives us meaningful insights to kids' need for commitment-free downtime, something we've taken carefully into consideration with our new channel refresh."
"Our line-up serves non-stop entertainment and fun from old friends such as frenemies, Tom and Jerry, to new ones such as the raccoon, Taffy, posing as the fluffy angora cat in Mrs Muchmore's manor."
"We are dedicated to staying in tune and reflect the needs of our audiences, and we are excited putting the results of the survey into action. We want to bring kids more to laugh about."
