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anyone been succesful raising dc in a tv-free home? i really don't want my kids watching tv (or dh and i watching for that matter)... just wondering if i'm being amish here or if its feasible
92 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]my friend does it. The thing is, live somewhere and send your kids somewhere where this is supported. Otherwise, your kids really will stand out and might feel resentful. The other way to do it is to get rid of cable and just rent dvds of spongebob, or whatever, so they don't feel completely left out of their peer culture
[ Reply | Options ]no, it's the spongebob and stuff that i'm trying to get rid of. pbs i like, and it's important that we keep a tv to play dvds of things (dh and i are documentary buffs). the rest of it can go
[ Reply | Options ]i agree...spongebob is awful. We're sending ds to a school where we can hopefully shelter him from this kind of crap. I agree w/post below. My parents sheltered me from pop culture and I was a bit of a freak.
[ Reply | Options ]I have to fast forward past Chuckeecheese ads on my PBS station on my DVRd Calliou shows so my son doesn't see them. I am so disappointed in PBS.
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My folks did this and I always felt like a bit of an outcast in school. When I got to college I bought my own tv and watched like 10 hours a day for a month.
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i grew up (mostly) without a tv. i'd watch occasionally @ friend's homes. then my parents got one when i was about 12, and i was obsessed for awhile. now my husband and i only use ours for our netflix rentals. we watch when we're elsewhere (gym, hotel), but we get along just fine without. i don't plan on changing a thing when the baby is born.
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We almost never watch TV, but I have to say that it has been invaluable a few times, particularly when DD was going through a major separation anxiety stage and I had to make an important phone call/talk to the plumber/etc. It's not hard to keep one around for if you want to watch something, and it's also not hard to really limit it. FWIW, everyone I know who grew up without a TV is very weird, totally bitter about it, and they all let their kids watch as much TV as they want.
[ Reply | Options ]We haven't had a tv for years but I would consider getting one if I felt my kids (oldest 2.5yrs) were missing out. Our eldest does watch cartoons on Youtube.
[ Reply | Options ]yeah, we're def keeping net access. i just don't want a household of kids who spend 3 and 4 hrs ago in front of a tv (and i know i can gauge that, but honestly we all think we watch less tv than we do. the hrs fly by)...
[ Reply | Options ]We watch the news etc on the net and honestly we don't miss the tv at all. If we had one it would be on all the time. Whenever I visit my family there only ever seems to be re runs on anyway.
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you are telling your dh not to watch tv - why can't he. He is that much of your unick
[ Reply | Options ]ya know, some of us are actually married to people who agree with our philosophies. we don't have to force them to do anything...
[ Reply | Options ]you said you didnt want him watching tv - that's different than saying he doesn't watch tv anyway. You really should move to the amish country
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ds was tv free until he was a few months over 2. since then he watches on some days.
[ Reply | Options ]My dc don't watch tv except once in a while (less than 1x a month), I'd say. This is not a rule in our house, but we just don't watch a lot of tv ourselves and I honestly never thought to turn it on for dc at the beginning. They are 4 and 2 now and don't seem to miss it. I also think the older one thinks more independently than her peers (the other girls were all princesses for Halloween for instance) and both are very good at amusing themselves so I see clear benefits. But I don't intend to be a hardliner about this. When they start asking for it or feeling left out among their friends, I will let them watch in moderation. They honestly just have not asked for it nor have they seemed to miss it. At this point, I think it would be more of a break for me than anything beneficial for them.
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Um, you said that not me. I said she was a more independent thinker and they were good at amusing themselves. I do attribute some of this to no tv watching. However, every child has strengths and weaknesses and I imagine your dc are better at some things than mine. Not sure why you're looking for a fight.
[ Reply | Options ]wow, inferiority complex! i keep seeing this comment posted. but just maybe kids raised without tv will be better. wouldn't that be refreshing: kids who enjoy learning and aren't obese and are imaginative and creative and who grow up to make a difference rather than buying into the whole consumerist *bs* that they learned on tv
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We've been successful so far at 4 years 2 months. Here are some helpful websites...http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org, http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/, http://www.cmch.tv/, http://www.commonsensemedia.org/ it's difficult, especially in Manhattan where you have to be in the closet about it or risk rude comments. I recently went to a conference about the effects of media on children and it was very helpful to me. There are valid reasons for sheltering kids from media to varying degrees. My 4 yo takes 2.5 hour car rides with us regularly, a several hour plane trip with just one or two books and doesn't bother anyone (was more polite than most of the adults around him). I truly feel we can unwittingly train young children to require large amounts of external stimulation to function. There's a qualitative difference in the original creativity in fantasy roleplaying and roleplaying which children self inflict scripts. I by the way was raised on TV. Watch for the snotty comments even now :-)
[ Reply | Options ]op: i'm more concerned about the culture of consumption and laziness than the actual sheltering dcs from content thing. i just watched too much tv as a child. it kept me from developing other habits. i'm no dumber for it, i have a phd, i'm a prof, etc, but i am also veerrry lazy, don't spend enough time outside, etc
[ Reply | Options ]OR Then you should check out the websites I mentioned. DH and I started about 10 years ago when our TV broke and we didn't have time to replace it for 2 years. We discovered our lives really were more interesting without it. We hope to be very aware and guide our child into being an aware and informed consumer. At the age of 2, several weeks after a single brief visit to Target (about 15 minutes) - he pointed to the dashboard of our brand new car's GPS pointing and shouting "Target, Target" as he pointed to the minuscule bullseye on our GPS screen. We'd never explained what Target was or it's logo. It was surprising to say the least.
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I love how defensive tv watchers are about their beloved televisions! They get sooooooo angry when someone--quite sweetly, it seems--suggests they don't want to watch tv. Why?
[ Reply | Options ]I was raised without a TV..am glad in some ways, felt like outcast in others. Here's what we do: One TV in our bedroom. We watch news, pbs, etc. Having it in bedroom only keeps me from watching crap. I'm focusing on my behavior. Child is allowed to watch tv, we just keep it off most of the time & don't make a big deal about it. Read Dora the explorer books and TV based dolls, etc, so DD knows the storylines. It's not seeing the shows that is a problem, it is not knowing the character's stories, so don't deny child that. When I was growing up, I thought kids that watched TV a lot were pretty boring, though I did want to watch some. Treat it like the movies. A lot of fun, you don't do it all the time.
[ Reply | Options ]eh, this doesn't sound like a good idea. not saying you should try to raise little couch potatoes but you are making tv the forbidden fruit and that will come back to bite you. why not watch in moderation? limit to 30 minutes a day?
[ Reply | Options ]We canceled cable over a year and a half ago and have no antenna, which means no TV in our house. We have 1 television for watching DVDs of our choosing. We made the choice to limit the exposure to advertising, violence and crap for our 2 y/o. We thought we might miss it, but we don't. Seriously. Every now and then we check in with each other, and neither one of us misses it even a little bit. We keep current on news via the internet and occasional newspapers/magazines. I used to have the TV on all the time while I did stuff around the house. Now, I savor the silence and the un-distracted time I can spend with my child. When we go somewhere (e.g., doctor's office or airport) with a TV on in the background, the constant sound actually bothers me. We hope that no TV for our family equals more family time of higher quality. We have 2 large bookshelves stacked with games, puzzles, crafts and books that we turn to instead, and we love it. As 2 y/o gets older, we want to have a family movie night once a week that makes movie-viewing into a special, family event. We have no plans to ever re-introduce the TV, and it's working great for us. I encourage you to go for it!
[ Reply | Options ]Can't believe the number of people saying kids with no TV are "freaks"!!! I grew up without TV (NOT Amish), and don't think I was ever considered a "freak" because of it. Now, I'm totally thankful that my parents made that choice. I love to read, be outside, play games, do puzzles, craft, etc, and don't miss TV in my life as an adult. Not judging the people who have and watch TV - - it's their choice - - just sayin' I'm glad to have had a TV-free life (for the most part) and don't feel like a "freak" because of it's absence.
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