When my munchkins were wee ones and I was pregnant or had a new baby, I didn't hesitate to let the kiddos watch tv. Meanwhile I snoozed on the couch with one eye open, happy to recruit help from the one-eyed-babysitter. But I quickly realized that my sweet little boys became addicts to the instant entertainment.
While weaning them from the TV, I got so tired of hearing, "Can we watch TVEEE?" "Can we watch now?" First thing out of their mouths in the morning..."Can I watch TV?" I got so sick of competing with this box for my boys' affection. So this has been the solution that Works for Me, and has for years now:
TV Days We have 2 days a week that the kids get to watch tv. We've chosen Wednesday and Saturdays for TV Days. The kids get to watch a few shows on each of these days. All other days are not tv days, and it's worked wonderfully. It wasn't long before my kids got used to hearing "It's not TV day today" and snuggled back into bed with me for long conversations about the day ahead or any other things on their little minds. I've loved it.
The Exception Sick days are also great days for TV, of course. I want my kids to rest and relax those days. We also "use" the TV for evenings when we're having company (that didn't bring other child-entertainers) and we want to have a conversation over dessert and coffee. This also works should my husband and I need to recruit that one-eyed babysitter for our own drawn out conversation on occasion. We love keeping the TV as a tool. Being a homeschool family, we have to have rules about these indulgent matters. Try it out, should you like....Works for Me!
2 comments:
This is a fantastic idea! I wish I had started this when mine were younger.
Great idea! We got rid of ours 2 years ago, and just do videos only. However, we may get TV again sometime. And that's a great rule for video watching, too. Except I use a lot of "school videos" as the kids call them, in our curriculum - like cool videos on the presidents or famous artists and such.
Post a Comment