The TV Experiment

After a fairly rough weekend and a rough Monday night, I decided that we were going to start limiting our television time! The children watch incredible amounts of television. I think F6 knows more about the Directv remote than I do. Honestly, I can walk through the living room at all hours of the night and see the little red dot indicating something is being recorded. Half the time I have no idea what it's recording. I have to regularly go through and delete some of the random things that F6 thought worthy of recording. He's caught me, too, when he goes looking for some obscure Scooby Doo episode that I've deleted! Hey, I've gotta have room for CSI, Survivor and the Quints. 

So this morning, they woke up and there was a towel over the TV. I told them we were taking a TV break! F4 thought I said the TV was broken so he checked to see if it really was. That kid!! There was no TV before school and I didn't let them watch it this afternoon until after dinner. Even then, I limited it to 1 hour. 

I'm amazed when I do this little experiment how their minds go into action. There's a moment of panic and boredom, like they have no idea what they could possibly do besides watch TV. Then they go into action. F6 heads to the table to do some sort of drawing or writing. F4 finds his bus or whatever his vehicle of the day is and starts pushing it through his imaginary city around the house. F2 just ping pongs from aggravating F4 to F6 and back and forth! 

I really enjoy hanging with the kids and the quiet of not having the TV blaring amongst the other chaos. I like seeing them be forced to use their imaginations. They worked on various construction projects around the house and had a pizza parlor tonight.  The kids even play better together and more peacefully when there's less noise and one less thing to fight over! We can interact and talk to each other! We get to be creative and focus our attention on each other. There are benefits to cutting back on our TV viewing.

When the weather is nice, like it was today, we can go out front and play. I really wish we lived in a house with a big long driveway with lots of room for them to ride their bikes and scooters. Call me overprotective, but I don't let them go in the street. No negotiating! They're not old enough to remember to look both ways or to be completely aware of the danger of cars flying by. I do wish we had sidewalks, but we don't. We just have to make due and do what we can! Even F2 knows how to roll down the driveway and turn whatever she's riding on so that she ends up in the grass before she gets to the street. 

In some ways, it's so easy to just let the kids watch TV constantly, but I know that's not the best thing for them! It's easier for me to just let them veg out so that I can wander around doing whatever it is that I think needs to get done in that moment! However, I want them to use their imaginations.  I want them to be active. As their mother, I have to do a better job of diverting their attention to places other than the TV. I take full responsibility for their TV viewing habits. I also take full responsibility to starting to ween them from their reliance on it as their main form of entertainment. I'm hopeful that I can keep my resolve on this little issue in our household.