Your Child and TV

Most parents complain that their children watch too much television. In this age and time television is a fact of life. One doesn’t come across families that don't have one, or that never watch one. While there is nothing wrong with television per se one has to be selective when it comes to watching television and how much of it you can allow your children. Television is educational, informative, and uplifting. At the same time, a lot of what is shown on TV is nothing but drivel. It is nowhere near uplifting or educational, and shows certain behavior that is quite unacceptable and undesirable in most social circles. But, children are too small to discern the difference and make intelligent choices.

Furthermore, time in front of the TV is time NOT spent in physical activity, nor in conversation. In other words, watching television is a largely passive, solitary, activity that undermines healthy social behavior and promotes obesity and other "couch potato" disorders.

That television influences behaviors is evident from the billions of dollars spent on advertisements. It is the sheer repetition of it that works on the minds of people and comes to surface at the time of making choices.

Ask any parent and they would most likely want to throw the television out of the window, but that doesn’t serve the purpose. You can’t throw the baby with the bathwater. So, let’s be sensible about it and take positive steps to limit your child's exposure to it. Here are some suggestions:

1. To begin with, you will need to cut down on your own TV watching. If you spend 4 hours a day watching soaps and other nonsense, you can’t expect your child to be selective and watch television in a limited time. Parents have to become good role models for their children. You can influence the impressionable minds of your children by setting good examples rather then by preaching to them.

2. If not TV then what? First for yourself, and then for your children, find alternative activities that are healthy and pro-social. The obvious ones are taking up some sports or hobbies - football, hockey, swimming, karate, dancing, painting, scrap-booking, collecting stamps, coins, or butterflies, model railways, woodworking or cross-stitch - the list is endless. But, yes, you actually have to DO something to make this work! If you really just want to relax and chill-out - what about reading a good novel, or even a graphical novel (aka comic book) while listening to your favorite music?

Take a visit to your local recreation center and/or adult education center and see what programs and classes they have on offer. Make a deal with your child that if he attends one of his choice you will offer some incentive.

3. It helps to discuss the matter with the child and come to an agreement on rules of television watching, such as, no TV before school and during meals. You may even like to fix one day of the week as a regular TV-free day.

4. Another way is to opt for pre-schedule television, which allows you to watch only what has been pre-booked. This way you won’t spend time in channel surfing and the family can together decide what is worth watching.

5. Use television time as a reward for other activities, such as completing household chores, or getting homework done. You will need to draw up some sort of chart to keep track of all this!

6. Watch television together - and then talk about what you viewed. You can discuss the program itself - its values, its quality of acting and scripting - or you can discuss the commercials. Doing the latter is a very valuable exercise as it helps children to be less naive and gullible when it comes to advertising. See if you, as a family, can figure out what strings the adverts are trying to pull to get you to want and buy their product. Do the toys and foods live up to the hype when you actually go and buy them?

7. Remember to be reasonable and fair while turning off the television. Wait till the show is over and give some reasonable warning.

8. If you can afford to cancel your expensive cable and satellite subscriptions, you will be able to use the extra money for other activities, and there will be less programs to watch. This will do a lot of good to you as a family. You will be able to go out together. You will enjoy a home-cooked pizza on a special family night instead of the usual couch potato routine.

As with all things, moderation is usually the key. Be selective. Find the good programs and watch them. The rest of the time, do something more active or more sociable. Within a month or two you will wonder how you (and your kids) ever found the time to watch so much of it.

Dr. Noel Swanson's website provides free expert parenting tips & advice - just sign up for his newsletter and get a free chapter of his book, The GOOD CHILD Guide. You can also meet with other parents on a parenting forum.
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