Why I don't restrict TV time

     Well for starters, I don't restrict TV because today, after a dark and menacing thunder storm prompted me to declare it was a good day to curl up on the couch and watch TV, my children have, instead, chosen to make a movie spoofing The Wizard of Oz. They've been happily engaged planning, making costumes, writing lyrics, (it's apparently a musical) doing hair and make-up and filming for far longer than they would have lounged on the couch for a movie.  In fact, today, the TV has only been on long enough for my daughter to skip through a recorded episode of  American Idol while she ate her breakfast. Gotta love DVRs for making TV watching so much more efficient!  Is this normal? like everything else in our life, it depends on the day. 

   Having not liked limited TV time when I was growing up,  I started out parenting with no plans to restrict TV.  Home all day with small children, with a husband in school, working full time and never home,  I was also watching a lot of TV myself, at the time. However, as I started finding more and more reasons to turn off the tube myself, I became less enamored with the idea of my kids plopped in front of it. Then, we got cable. Suddenly, with more than just PBS to choose from, the TV was on more than ever.  My love affair with television was definitely coming to an end. I was watching less and less and becoming more and more annoyed by its presence in my home. It was loud, it was bright, it was inane, it was distracting and I was getting sick of it. When our power was out for over two weeks after hurricane Wilma, I enjoyed the respite so much that I decided to begin eliminating it from our lives.

     At first, it was mostly me declaring, "You've watched too much tv. Go play outside!" but then I began to set time limits, make rules and design charts. With 3 kids, this was always hard to keep track of and enforce. They would reason that they had only watched a few minutes of a show and not the whole half hour or that they were just walking through the room during someone else's time.  It made it really difficult to keep up with the precise measurements I was seeking to enforce. Next, I decided they could only watch it after homework and chores were finished. Eventually, and I was SO proud of my super-mom skills, I made a list of daily requirements and attached  a limited amount of tv time to each.  IF they performed all of their daily requirements, the most TV they could consume in a week was 3 hours, and that was limited to weekends. Then, on the weekends we were so busy that they hardly had enough time to get in any of the TV time they had worked so hard to earn.  It was the perfect plan.  I had a quiet, peaceful house and I could boast to all my mommy friends about how little TV my kids watched. If there was a super-mom contest, I was winning!

   

     Then I started homeschooling and our whole world changed. Suddenly, we weren't running all over the place like crazy people. Time was not our constant enemy but simply something that existed.  Lists and charts and schedules were not only unnecessary but life without them was suddenly free and simple and wonderful. I began to voraciously consume information about natural learning. I began to rethink life. I began to let go.  At this point, TV had become an area of contention between me and my children. My son was suddenly "sick" almost every day and very whiny about his "need" to lay in bed and watch TV.  They were frequently asking for extra TV time and special concessions to watch certain things. I had made a decision for my children based on my own life's experiences and my own preferences and was robbing them of the same experiences that led to my decision and they were rebelling against that. So I decided to let them make their own decisions about how much TV they would watch and relinquished control.

     So what does unlimited TV time look like now, in a house where the kids are home all day, with probably 10 channels devoted solely to children's programming, lots of DVDs and Netflix? A lot of times it looks like today with lots of other interesting activities taking place instead. Since I still find it's presence somewhat annoying, we don't have the TV in the main part of the house on often, unless we're watching something together.  The TV is off, then its on, then it's off again. Sometimes it's "educational", sometimes it's Spongebob. It is almost always abandoned for something more interesting. Sometimes it's on while they do crafts, play with legos or do a puzzle. They record the shows they really want to watch and watch them when it's convenient.  My oldest, like me, watches very little. My son seems to watch the most. I've noticed that after he's been very active it's almost like he uses it to unwind for awhile. My youngest can still barely sit through a whole movie. She'll watch if someone else is watching but then usually loses interest quickly.  Do they watch more than 3 hours a week? Yes. Are they showing discernment and wisdom making their own choices for themselves? Definitely

......and by the way, they still read and play outside, they are not obese and they are unbelievably creative and talented.