Television

It's amazing how much television dominates MY life! I have a DVR and you should see my TV show line up. When I don't have time to watch TV and start to see those shows add up I begin to realize it's a little ridiculous. Then I started thinking about how when my middle son wakes up, we go down stairs and I turn on Playhouse Disney. He sits on the couch, asks for cereal and a drink and then proceeds to watch whatever show is on. I start to catch up with whatever I didn't finish the night before. I will do the dishes, make breakfast for everyone, make my mocha and then shower. By the time I've gotten all of this done including some computer time up to 2 hours and 4 shows have passed!

Yesterday I decided to go radical. I have so much going on in my life right now, I have my eldest getting close to starting Kindergarten, I have a middle son who is in the "terrific" threes and a baby who still wakes up every couple to few hours to eat all night long. With just those three kids I shouldn't have time to even think about TV. They are all in different phases and have minds that move a million miles a second. They are little sponges who want to learn and explore and while the shows they watch tend to teach things such as numbers, letters, colors, etc. there are so many other, more exciting ways to learn those things. And so we're cutting it out. We're going cold turkey the TV is off for the next little while.

I am not anti TV I think it's an okay pass time. My problem with it is it becomes so much more than a pass time. We start to ignore each other in order to watch a show, we use it as an electronic babysitter because mostly you can stick a kid in front of it and they'll be mesmerized for at least a little while. I don't see a problem with doing that some times but my problem was it was all the time. My kids should be able to find other ways to entertain themselves when I have something to do and I sometimes need to let things go to just entertain my kids.

And it's not just a problem with kids/parents, it's a way for spouses/significant others to not have to interact too! My husband works a lot and our time together is limited during the week. My husband can take or leave the TV which I think is great. He isn't one to come home, turn on sports and proceed to ignore what's going on around him. I am more the one who has the problem! But I think he and I could be playing games or reading books together after the kids go to bed instead of being planted in front of the TV. Although I know sometimes, especially for my husband, he gets home and he's done. He's worked a 14 or 16 hour day and he does need to just eat dinner, watch something mind numbing and then go to bed and I see nothing wrong with that but over all on good nights when he's had a more normal day I don't want to go to bed wondering how we missed having any sort of conversation with each other.

I want days or weeks to go by and realize we were able to entertain ourselves so much with non-electric items that we haven't even turned the TV on. Of course in this day and age I might pass out if someone told me I had to give up my internet access! And my eldest son is still playing his learning games on his V-Tech (which time with that will be cut back too, but one media device at a time). But in this day and age how can we totally remove ourselves from electronic devices? I don't know that we can or should have to but I do think they can be all consuming, life draining forces. So my goal is to control myself and my time on my media outlets whether it be TV, Facebook, internet searching or whatever so that I'm enjoying my kids, my husband and the great outdoors more!