We have twin boys
now aged 6 1/2 who have not had TV in the home since the age of 1 year.
We have never been very fond of TV ourselves, and we weaned ourselves
completely while living overseas in developing countries that had no
American TV programming. We decided on returning to the US not to re-add
television to our home. We don't want the children to become addicts
to the 2-dimensional box, we're even hesitant to allow computers and
their games, believing strongly that young kids need 3-dimensional,
multi-sensory experiences. Besides, we don't want to waste our own time
doing the screening or co-watching of TV programs that we feel would
be necessary if we were to allow the children to watch much TV.
They do see TV when
visiting friends or family (and become rapidly glued to the screen),
but we don't mind that much since we know it can't become a habit. We
know several other families who have raised their children without TV
and we are impressed by the creativity, verbal abilities, intelligence
and sociability of their now-grown children. We hope to foster some
of those same things in our own kid. It is true, there is a large slice
of American culture that they're only peripherally aware of, but as
it's not a particularly valuable slice, we don't feel that they're missing
out on anything important.
Our kids are very
good at entertaining themselves, looking at and beginning to read books,
listening to music, building Legos projects, endless drawing of pictures,
and playing outside. It's true, we do sometimes have to entertain them,
but it's not onerous — it's about the amount of time we would want
to spend with them anyway. We spend it playing board games, reading-reading-reading,
making music, building Legos....you get the picture. When we need time
to ourselves, we tell the boys to entertain themselves, and they (mostly)
do so. People often comment on how polite, verbal and nice our kids
are. It's surprising to me how often people respond with something like,
"Good for you" when we tell them that we have no TV in our
home — as if they wish they could do/would've done the same themselves.
Of course, we know that sometimes they think we're odd, but we don't
mind.
Interestingly, we
find that we have to be more careful of which films the kids see in
the cinema, since they're not used to the unreality of the (small) silver
screen and especially not to the high-intensity, in-your-face sights
and sounds that pervade even children's movies these days. I have been
very much supported in my own unformed unease regarding TV by information
gleaned from TVP's publications, and often use statistics taken from
them to counsel parents/patients in my medical practice to limit TV
viewing by their children.
It's truly amazing
how wonderfully different our home feels without the black box shouting
advertisements and inane sitcoms compared to other homes that have TVs
in the living room, bedrooms, kitchen. It's easiest to do all this from
the beginning, I'm sure, but it can be done later on also. Kids think
their parents are weird anyway, why not let them think you're crazy
on the issue of TV, too? They'll get used to it, and benefit in the
long run. We've thought of getting a TV to use as a video monitor, but
we're more than a little afraid and keep putting it off. Our kids ask
for it sometimes, but when they don't see a TV materializing they head
off to the bookshelf or the Legos box.
Connie
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