television

I don't like the effect that television has on my children. It's not the commercials (they don't really like TV TV, they prefer the kids DVDs and movies to watching alot of kids programming). I think it has something to do with thee way a child's mind is engaged. Little or no interaction with what is going on, it's almost as though even a half hour of TV time is too much at times.

Focus flies out the window, and I have to allot myself at least half an hour after TV to get the kids in any semblance of their normal self.

Now, we used to let them watch more. It wasn't uncommon, especially when I was preggers with number two, to let the Boy watch while I dozed on the couch (I was working a 2-11 night shift at a call centre to help make ends meet). Not that he'd let me. As soon as I drifted off, I'd get whacked in the head with a block, book, or some other toy.

With baby #2, I knew I had to cut back, so I did for a while. Then after naps became our TV time so I could catch a few extra winks. But they were still watching over an hour a day. Not necessarily the best thing for a baby and a toddler to be doing.

After we moved to Calgary, we cut back even more, but it's difficult to do when you get new movies and they want to watch the whole thing, over and over and over again. (The winter months are always the worst!) I'd like to think I got better after the move here to Saskatoon. With having the extra kids here, not everyone's attention would be held by the TV, so we wouldn't watch as much.

After Christmas last year, though, we'd had enough. (I guess it doesn't really help that we would sometimes use the TV so Mommy and Daddy could "sleep" more) After the Boy soiled himself for the third time in two days while watching cartoons, we decided to move the television down to the basement.

Our basement is unfinished. It got really cold down there during those Saskatchewan cold snaps that always come January, February. So they'd get TV once or twice a week for about an hour (MUCH better than over an hour a day) and they'd put up a big stink when the TV would be turned off. They'd ask to go down to watch, and we'd say yes or no. Usually no. Now they largely stop asking.

So, this morning, when I asked the Boy if he'd like to go downstairs to watch some TV, he got all excited, told his brother, who then got very excited. The Boy then told me it was a good surprise. I love having what alot of people/kids think of as their right as a treat.

I remember one little boy at the daycare I was working at before I had the Boy. He was I think four at the time, but he once told me that too much TV turned your brain into mush. It was probably something his parents told him, but I think it's pretty accurate. Why else would groups of people invest more emotion into the programs and fictitious characters they like to watch than they do into the actual relationships they have with real people?