ADVICE RATING |
  4.25 (Worth a try) from 14 votes (464 Visits) |
We've tried various methods in our house to control how much television the girls (and mom and dad) watch. At first, we told them they only got half an hour each per evening, but then sometimes they wanted to watch different things, or they wanted to watch more on one
night and none on another. So we changed the rules and made up a "TV Bank" in which everyone in the family (including mom and dad) got a chart with each week broken into 8 half hour blocks (in other words, we each got 4 hours of TV watching per week). Each member of the family was responsible for keeping track of how much they'd "withdrawn from the bank" (with a little assistance given to the 4 year old). That worked for quite awhile, but as all good intentions, we slacked off after awhile and didn't keep track.
All of these ideas have merit, but the thing we've found most successful is what we call "TV Free Month". Every year, we set aside one month when the TV gets turned off for the whole month. No one watches it - including Mom and Dad (we have to get our news fixes from the newspaper or internet). We usually do it in the summer, when there are lots of other things to do anyway.
I'd highly recommend this. It's worked really well for us for several years now. The girls barely complain, because they know it's coming far in advance and are prepared for it. We always find that it's really good for our family - we play outside more, read more, have more family time, and are generally more relaxed. It even seems like the girls fight less when they're not over-stimulated by TV. I think they're beginning to realize the value of it too, because tonight - in the middle of this year's TV free month - we asked them what ideas they have for cutting more things out of our budget for this coming year (when my husband will be in University full time, we'll need child care for our youngest, and our oldest needs braces) and they all agreed that they could do without cable TV. Wow!
(July 2006) (
I wonder what you think of TV free days? Like Monday through Thursday no TV that way it's all year round. Instead of just 1 month. Just wondering if it would work just as well.
