At least Monday through Thursday. It's not as if my kids ever had any problems watching too much TV. It's just that they wanted to. Okay, Anna did. She might have been glued to the tube all day long, if I weren't constantly stepping in to play the "bad guy" at each request. I think a little bit of TV is just fine. As a fall-back plan, it works just great. When I wake up with a migraine, it's nice to know I can snooze it off while my kids are entertained by a failproof babysitter. But I never found any guidelines with which I felt comfortable. A certain amount of time per day? What if we kept too busy to fit it in? Do the minutes carry over? Wait until after "quiet time" was the most recent fix. I found that my kids anticipated it so much that any suggestion of an alternative was met with a negative reply - the kids knowing that this was their only chance at vegging in front of the television. It even superseded a trip to the pool!
So here's the next phase of limiting the TV - let's pray we can all make peace with the arrangement - otherwise, what next? Throw out the set? I'm yet not ready to play that trump card.
After two days of the new rule I've found that we've enjoyed more conversation as a family, played a bit harder, and gone to sleep with fewer delays. With Anna in school for 7 hours out of the day, it's reason enough to keep the plan as a "go".
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2 comments:
works for us. we never did get a converter box when we moved. so the tv died when the signal died. at first we missed it. now we've sort of forgotten about it.
The couches now face another direction and we fill our days with something else. and if I ever need a foolproof babysitter, I've still go favorite pbs episodes from Idaho on the DVR.
It's surprising how one can largely live without tv.
Susie,
I love your blog. Thanks for sharing all of you - your blessings, your tribulations and your laughter.
Fran
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