Just Another Day In Paradise!: October 2009

Thursday, October 29, 2009

One week without TV

Today is 4 days into my experiment with having the kids go a week (5 days) without any TV. I realize that many of you probably only allow your kids to watch a healthy amount of TV, but over here in Babel land it's out of control. Of course I swore I would never let the TV babysit or entertain my kids (yeah right!) Evi is now almost six and Robert is approaching 3 and a half. How much TV should they even be watching? Well the AAP says 1-2 hours a day. I am so sad to say that often we were way over that amount. To give myself a little credit I do monitor what they watch. For instance Robert is obsessed with the Leap Frog DVD series and wants to watch The Letter Factory over and over. The kid knows the whole alphabet and it's sounds so obviously the TV is good for something. I thought for sure this was going to be way harder then it is. The kids are not even asking for it. I am carefully observing their behavior, attitude and mood as well. Go figure we are all a little calmer this week. Oh yeah and it turns out the kids can play with their toys and have fun doing it. Crazy. I know expecting a family in today's day and age to not watch any TV is CRAZY! But...this is really going to make me limit how much they watch and also make it more of a privilege then a right. The TV in our house is going to be controlled by Mommy and Daddy, not the kids. Can you hear me talking myself into this? I hope I can stick with it and I hope it helps everyone in our little family to grow.