T.V. Free...Life

It's been quiet around here lately. Not silent, not even very peaceful, really (How can peacefulness even be achieved with a rapidly moving one year old and adventurous five year old? If you have a secret, please pass it along.). But it's been quiet, nonetheless, and I think it's largely owed the absence of a screen. It's not as though we've gotten rid of our television, computer, or handheld devices - we simply haven't had them on much, particularly with the kids.

We love watching T.V. here. My husband and I have lots and lots of shows we love to watch. My husband is the type to start watching a two and half hour movie in the middle of the afternoon, simply because there isn't anything else he wants to do. There have been times where I felt like E. was getting way more than her fair share of television time, too, and had shows she just absolutely had to watch over and over (we have Netflix, so at least we've been able to avoid haven't specific times where she feels she MUST have the T.V. on). I never imagined that we would become a home where the T.V. is on as little as it is.

Here's how it usually happens: We all get up, have breakfast, clean up, play, go to school, if it's one of those days, play some more, get chores done, go outside, run an errand maybe, (lunch and snacks are thrown in here somewhere), prepare dinner, have dinner (we've been doing this by candlelight a lot lately, which just seems to keep everyone calm and pleasant during the meal). Somewhere around dinner time, either just before or just after, we watch about a half an hour of T.V. Some days we don't watch any at all. And E. is not asking for it, either.

This is a huge contrast to even just a few months ago (we've been slowly building towards this), when E. could easily watch two hours of television, if not more, in a day. And I realize that two hours is considered "okay", but I just couldn't fathom how E. sitting for those two hours, even if she wasn't doing it consecutively, even if she was getting lots of active time beyond, was healthy or "okay."

Why we started: After reading a lot on the effects of television on children's brain growth and the impact it has on their imaginary play and just being overall frustrated with her education, I decided it was time to limit T.V. as much as we possibly could so E. could have as much time to play, explore imaginatively, and discover of what she is capable, as possible.

And with a little one in the home and with T.V. not being recommended for children under two years, I knew I wanted to limit T.V. for his sake, too. This was also a habit I wanted entrenched by the time M. was of T.V. viewing age, because, and this is honestly just my opinion, backed up by nothing buy anecdotal evidence, I feel that boys are far more susceptible to media addiction. The men and boys in my family seem to have a real difficulty in pulling themselves away from the T.V. and their "devices", and I don't want that for M. If little T.V. is a habit in our household now, I think it will continue to be as he gets older.

How we started: I began by saying we would only have T.V. three times a day, around breakfast, around lunch, and around dinner. If E. asked for more, I had to stay pretty steadfast and say no. At first, it really wasn't easy, and there were plenty of times where I just wished I could give in and let her have it, but I didn't, and I'm really proud of that.

After a bit, I started saying no to T.V. in the morning during the school week. My excuse was, and this is partially true, was that it was preventing us from getting out the door on time. E. would have a really hard time stopping the show to go get ready. Eventually we started getting rid of T.V. in the mornings on the weekends, too.

Honestly, after we got rid of morning T.V., the rest came pretty easily. By setting the tone for the day with playing and working together, E. sort of forgot that there was T.V. to watch. Occasionally, she would ask to watch T.V. or a movie, and I could more easily make a judgement call about whether or not it was a good time, depending on how much screen time she'd had previously. Now that we watch T.V. so rarely, when E. asks to watch T.V. or a movie, I don't feel guilty and will happily put something on for her.

Unexpected Benefits: There are a couple of things that have cropped up since we started limiting T.V. One, I've started being able to watch T.V. with E. I've tried planning T.V. time, when we have it, for moments where I'm either in the room with her, prepping dinner or cleaning, or I can actually sit down and watch. It's nice to actually be able to enjoy what's being watched rather than using the T.V. as a babysitter.

Two, my husband, the lover of all things screen, big and small, has given up T.V. for Lent. Seriously. I think he realized if he wanted to watch T.V. while the kids are up, he was going to be banished to the basement. I wonder if perhaps he got a bit lonely down there all by himself while the rest of us are having fun above ground.

At this point we're in maintenance mode and fine-tuning here and there. I'm trying to cut back on my computer/tablet use and I've started keeping track of the days where we go without T.V. completely, just for fun. Do I someday hope we become a T.V. free family, and we can just get rid of the tube? Not really. I don't think T.V. is the root of all evil, I just think we can all be doing something else instead. But I do love my shows (thank goodness Scandal is back on!!) and there is nothing like a good family movie, but for the day to day? If we're mostly to completely free of screen time, I think we'll be all the better for it.