The way television has invaded our children’s every move is frustrating. TV programming for kids create an inviting environment that advertise “educational and fun”, and fill it with product placement and advertising to get our kids to scream, “I WANT IT!” for everything from cereal to more TV shows. They try to fill the shows with kids dancing and playing outdoors, but in reality, if your kid’s watching that, they’re not participating, they’re just sitting like lumps in front of the TV.When I was 8, I was grounded from TV “FOREVER”. At the time, I thought it was the most ridiculous, unreasonable punishment and possible grounds for emancipation from the household of adults in which I was raised. Being grounded from TV “FOREVER” forced me to retire to my bedroom in the evening and read wagonloads of books from the library every week, make new friends so that I could be social, join extra-curricular activities, and play outside.
My husband grew up in a totally different household. His TV was on 24/7, his family ate dinner in front of the TV and they had a TV in every room of the house.
While we were pregnant, I read an article that instructed parents to refrain from allowing small infants to watch TV because it was detrimental to their eye development among other mental cognitive processes. Armed with this knowledge and our TV backgrounds, Josh and I agreed that Sara was not to watch TV for any length of time and we avoided kid shows altogether.
For most of Sara’s 3 years, she didn’t really watch TV except for the occasional football game, for which she would run around the house with her Mommy and Daddy screaming “FOOTBALL! FOOTBALL!” on Sundays. I tried to watch the movie “Happy Feet” with her once when she was 2 1/2 yrs old and she spent the first 20 minutes in my lap sobbing for the poor baby penguin and I had to turn it off. She didn’t want me to turn it off, but she was literally sobbing hysterically thinking that the penguin was hurt! I refused turn the TV on again for months!
This past spring has brought weeks and weeks of rain and it was easy to lax into the routine of keeping her busy indoors. Unfortunately, that introduced Jane & the Dragon (which my husband and I personally like to watch), Dora, and Diego. For the past 3 weeks, she has been asking for Dora and Diego when she wakes up in the morning and she’s reluctant to leave the house or to even go outside.
It’s like introducing crack to an addict and now it’s constantly “One mo’, Dora” Mama. Other children who’s had TV as a background noise all their lives now ignore it for other things. Our daughter, who’s extremely focused and likes to finish what she’s doing, sits down and watches the shows all the way through. Doing this for 1 or 2 episodes isn’t too alarming, but 6 or 8 or 10? The fear that she’s going to meld into the couch is very real, folks!
While some rules were still maintained — we never ate meals with the TV on, we don’t eat in front of the TV, we turned the TV off when the episodes were done — our 30 – 45 minutes / day TV rule was definitely broken.
The weather’s finally turned for the better and after a trip to the local Toys R’ Us for a large amount of outdoor toys, she’s slowly but surely becoming less attached to the TV. Luckily, playing with the hose, her Dora watering can and Play-doh seems to trump episode after episode for now. While I don’t want to ground her from TV “FOREVER”, I don’t want her to become a TV vegetable. When all else fails, bribe.
What else can be done to help your kid break from the TV addiction?
