Last day of curbing television habits, honest! And to show you that I am not a fun buster, party pooper, or uncool mom, tomorrow I will give you a run down on our ten favorite “oldie goldie,” non-animated Disney movies!
In the meantime, I have one more day of strategies to curb your family’s television habits, specifically those of your children. So here are my final thoughts on this (for a while, anyway!):
1. Have the children earn television hours. This has been suggested to us many times when we speak about time management and time with your children, so it must work well for some folks! I have heard of various ways to earn tv time—same number of hours reading as watching, getting so many minutes per chore, earning minutes by doing things on time (i.e. homework done by six equals 30 mins tv), etc.
2. Watch out for preschoolers tube time! This isn’t a method for controlling as much as an admonition. Your preschoolers will grow to dislike simple pleasures very quickly if they watch television and movies all day. We had a “no movie during the day period” rule most of our lives. (The exception to this was one hour of educational dvds, like Reading Rainbow, Doughnut Man, NEST videos, etc. for one hour after naps with a particularly trying child.) Note: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours per day of television for two year old and up preschoolers and none for children under two. There are so many more educational, meaningful, physical, and fun things for two and three year olds to do besides watching television!
3. Make a “no turning on the television without permission” rule. I am amazed when children come into a house and turn on the television. I have seen semi-pornography on commercials for television shows many, many times when we are at someone’s house watching football or in a motel viewing television. I would never consider letting our kids have the remote control to a tv and flipping through the channels. They just see way more than they should see at their ages (or more than I want me or my husband to see!).
4. Be careful not to use television as a babysitter too much. I know preschoolers and toddlers are demanding. I had six kids twelve and under all at home by myself twelve to fourteen hours a day every day—without television! However, continually putting little ones in front of the television is simply not healthy for them. Their attention spans will not lengthen like they would if they were listening to talking books, listening to you read aloud, or building with Duplos. Use the television as a babysitter only when it is absolutely needed—and try to find other ways to entertain toddlers as much as possible.
5. Limit daytime viewing for everyone. We always told our kids that daytime was for learning and working—and evenings were for resting, fellowshipping, and family. It is extremely hard to control the number of hours our kids watch television when they watch from seven to eight before school and again from four to six after school—to start with!
6. Pay attention to how much time children spend using all screen media. In a study recorded in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the hours of actual screen time logged by children versus the hours that parents estimated were significantly different. In our media-driven age, we should be aware of all of our children’s media/screen time—not just television*.
7. Do not put a television set in a child’s bedroom. The aforementioned study discovered that children with televisions in their bedrooms watch significantly more television than children without. Furthermore, parents monitored television habits much less when there were many television sets in a household—and especially when the children’s rooms contained televisions.
8. Turn the television off when it is not being used for purposeful viewing. The studied previously cited found a negative association between the use of television as “background” and children’s time spent reading. Quite simply, reading is a simple pleasure that many children do not enjoy—background noise of television is not conducive to enjoying this pasttime that takes a great deal more effort than simply viewing and listening.
9. Pinpoint other nonscreen, in-home activities that your children enjoy. When discussing the idea of reducing television viewing time in your home, you might have a family meeting and draw up a list of other ideas of things the family can do instead of watching television. A website devoted to helping families reduce their dependence upon television, The Television Turnoff Network (https://www.televisionturnoff.org/), lists one hundred alternatives to “screen time” that parents can suggest to their children.
Family time is worth fighting for. The relationships that can be developed when some of the distractions are removed are incredible. The amazing things that we and our children can do with the time that we are not watching television are worthwhile. Don’t let your children set out to spend nearly fourteen years of their lives watching television!
*Jordan, Amy, PhD; James C. Hersey, PhD; Judith A. McDivitt, PhD; Carrie D. Heitzler, MPH. “Reducing Children’s Television-Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and Their Children.” Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Web. Feb 2010.
