Turn Off the TV!

As a child I enjoyed TV, but I would rather do other things than watch TV. My cousins told stories about how I would switch the TV to "buzz" to make everyone go out and play. Oh, we watched plenty of family shows and Saturday morning cartoons. And of course there were the video rentals. But it certainly didn't consume my day as a child. We didn't have cable and I am pretty sure my when my parents divorced they still owned the first color TV they had purchased and had been our main TV.

Somehow a few years later I must admit I fell in love with TV. Was it cable? Was it the DVR? Which, by the way I invented! That's right, I loved watching The Facts of Life and Little House on the Prairie, but thought it would be so great if I could watch them when I wanted to. So, I dreamed of the day when the networks would just mail a video tape of the days episode! LOL!

And now at 35 I officially watch too much TV. I pop the on button while I cook dinner, do house work, etc.

Thankfully, somehow my little boy has not grown up as a TV junkie. I am sure this is mostly because I cannot stand kids shows and simple didn't offer them when he was younger. Sure he watched Bob the Builder or another kids show while eating his cheerios, but then the TV went off for the day. That is until around lunchtime when I flipped it on to watch decorating shows. Awsumb was more likely to ask to watch baseball than TV. And movies were reserved for family movie nights.

These days Awsumb might watch a cartoon before school or while eating a snack maybe once or twice a week. Because he just started something from the DVR or On Demand he never knew what time his favorite shows came on or the daily TV schedule. Of course our family will often watch something together later in the evening.

I have never used the TV as a babysitter. I figured because I couldn't stand to hear kids TV in the background I would have to teach my child to play so I could cook dinner or other things.

Besides kids shows just being simply annoying I read these stats recently in Nurture Shock. Education TV can actually be worse than cartoons. 96.% of all TV includes verbal put downs. Kids shows spend more time setting up conflict thmt solving problems... and it's the conflict that the kids absorb. Just something to think about.

I was thinking about this today after I read about the couple in Korea that neglected their baby while they played video games. I have heard before about Koreans addiction to the online world, how they fill 24 hour Internet cafes and play to the death.. literally. When this was forwarded to me today with a plea to turn off the computer, set down the phone.  Seriously how does someone fo on such a TV binge they forget their newborn?

So for today anyway,  it's time to turn off the TV!