I grew up myself for the
most part without television. My mother came from Amish country and
thought television caused cancer, so I grew up with only the barest
understanding of popular culture. When I got out of the house, I drowned
myself in TV, movies, radio, etc. It was something like eating too many
microwaved chocolate chip cookies. They are exquisite until one gets
sick on them. This was the same for my love affair with television.
I fell in love and fell out of love. I went back to the newspaper and
books.
As I got older,
I married a wonderful man and had children. He, too, had come from a
strict house where he was only allowed to watch certain programs, so
we thought we were doing our children a favor by letting them have free
access to the television.
What a mistake!
Our three-year-old
son would turn the television on in the morning and stay glued to the
set all day. He would watch the same movie over and over again until
he knew all the words. Okay, we thought, this is what normal kids are
like these days. We didn't worry. These were Disney movies after all,
or cartoons. The problems came when he got tired of Disney movies and
cartoons and started channel surfing and pulling up shows like Ricki
Lake. The last straw came when we ourselves couldn't take the constant
rattle of the television and begged to turn it off. He became violent
and started throwing things at us, kicking us, or trying to lock us
out of the living room to stay with his beloved television set.
It was then we realized
that he was having a relationship with the TV that was stronger than
his relationship with this family!
To pick up the television,
unplug it, and put it in storage was not that difficult. In fact, it
was surprisingly easy. My husband took no time in coming to that decision
and executing it. The results were painful: temper tantrums, screaming
fits, etc. He would do anything to get to the television. If there was
one available, he would use any ploy, even locking family members out
of the room with the television in it. Moderation did not seem to work
because once it was on, he was captive and could not allow anyone to
turn it off even after all the children's programming turned into the
afternoon soap operas. For that reason, it was cold turkey....
With time, he got
bored. He learned to go outside and play, to stage puppet shows with
his toys, to color, to pester people to be part of whatever they were
doing, to tell himself stories, and to want to learn to read books -
badly. In short, we have less time now that the TV is gone because we
are having a relationship with our child. We have also realized that
maybe our own parents were not that stupid after all?
Anyway, we still
have the radio and our son listens to the sports games. We also have
books on tape that he plays for himself. The added bonus to that is
that by repetition and turning the pages with the stories, he is learning
to read as well. We also have computer programs that allow him to interact
and learn about dinosaurs. Because he is forced to do something in each
of these activities, he has not requested to do any of them to the exclusion of eating, drinking and talking to his family.
For this, we are
grateful. Instead, we make a big deal about going to the library each
week. If he wants fantasy entertainment, he needs to learn to read.
The downside of
this is that at anyone else's house, our son parks himself in front
of the TV and will watch anything, including hours of CNN. Sometimes
he has temper tantrums when asked to go home. This is just something
we deal with, though. The culprit at least is not in our own daily home
life anymore.
If my husband and
I want to watch a show, we take it out of storage, hook it up, watch
our show and put it back when we're done.
When other people
comment on our child, they say that he is extremely well-mannered and
settled compared with many other children. He is able to sit for dinners
at restaurants and for theatrical shows. Because he has not (recently)
been overwhelmed with entertainment, he enjoys these little things so
much more and doesn't whine anymore that he is "bored."
Dana
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