{"id":1337,"date":"2010-02-07T00:17:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T00:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-thirty-seven-part-iii-develop-strategies-to-curb-your-familys-television-habits\/"},"modified":"2015-06-09T10:40:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T14:40:17","slug":"day-thirty-seven-part-iii-develop-strategies-to-curb-your-familys-television-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-thirty-seven-part-iii-develop-strategies-to-curb-your-familys-television-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"day thirty-seven: part III–develop strategies to curb your family’s television habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u201coldie goldie,” non-animated Disney movies!<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I have one more day of strategies to curb your family\u2019s television habits, specifically those of your children. So here are my final thoughts on this (for a while, anyway!):<\/p>\n

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\u2014same 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. <\/p>\n

2. Watch out for preschoolers tube time! This isn\u2019t 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 \u201cno movie during the day period\u201d 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!<\/p>\n

3. Make a \u201cno turning on the television without permission\u201d 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\u2019s 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!).<\/p>\n

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\u2014without 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\u2014and try to find other ways to entertain toddlers as much as possible.<\/p>\n

5. Limit daytime viewing for everyone. We always told our kids that daytime was for learning and working\u2014and 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\u2014to start with!<\/p>\n

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\u2019s media\/screen time\u2014not just television*.<\/p>\n

7. Do not put a television set in a child\u2019s 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\u2014and especially when the children\u2019s rooms contained televisions.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cbackground\u201d and children\u2019s time spent reading. Quite simply, reading is a simple pleasure that many children do not enjoy\u2014background noise of television is not conducive to enjoying this pasttime that takes a great deal more effort than simply viewing and listening.<\/p>\n

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\/<\/a>), lists one hundred alternatives to \u201cscreen time\u201d that parents can suggest to their children.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t let your children set out to spend nearly fourteen years of their lives watching television!<\/p>\n

*Jordan, Amy, PhD; James C. Hersey, PhD; Judith A. McDivitt, PhD; Carrie D. Heitzler, MPH. \u201cReducing Children’s Television-Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and Their Children.\u201d Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.<\/em> Web. Feb 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201coldie goldie,” non-animated Disney movies! In the meantime, I have one more day of strategies to curb your family\u2019s television […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[643,308],"tags":[278,277,107,341,39,319,271,275],"yoast_head":"\nday thirty-seven: part III-develop strategies to curb your family's television habits - Character Ink<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-thirty-seven-part-iii-develop-strategies-to-curb-your-familys-television-habits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"day thirty-seven: part III-develop strategies to curb your family's television habits - Character Ink\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last day of curbing television habits, honest! 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