• Watching TV During Dinner
• TV - to have or have not
• Eliminating or Limiting TV Viewing
• See also: Recommendations for Kids' TV

Watching TV During Dinner

I moved in with my husband into a place that doesn't have room for a dinner table. Since then, we have had a child, and I told him that I want our next place to have a dinner table that we all sit down to for at least dinner, if not breakfast and dinner. He doesn't understand this. His family always ate in front of the TV (his mom was widowed young, they were latchkey kids, they didn't have breakfast at all and she was too busy to fix proper lunches either), and he thinks this is normal. So far, it's been what we've been doing, but I thought it was for lack of space.

How normal is it to never sit down to meals at a table together? Also, I seem to remember some research awhile back saying that sitting down to meals together is good for the family, and other research that sitting in front of the TV for meals is bad for your health. He's not likely to believe much in the way of research, but just in case, can anyone send me links to relatively well-respected studies in this area? I would greatly appreciate it. new mom

http://tvallowance.com/research/

http://www.homemakingcottage.com/television.html

http://www.aaronshep.com/parent/

http://www.aap.org/advocacy/chm98nws.htm

http://www.jgs.net/ecf/jan961.htm

http://www.limitv.org/getthetv.htm

TV - to have or have not

hi----I realize I may be asking a loaded question, but here goes.......we just moved into an area that gets absolutely no tv reception without cable or satelite hook-up. I guess the hills in front of us block everything. So we've been living without a tv for a couple of months and with few exceptions I can say I don't really miss it (and my husband occasionally misses watching sports). I'm thinking of forgoing the cable/satellite hook-up. It would save money and I'd remove the temptation to indulge......my kids would have no access to the boob-tube. They would, however, miss out on educational tv programs. I'm interested in hearing real-life pros/cons from parents that have been living without access to tv (and did this approach eventually back-fire?), with limited access to tv(and how did you effectively monitor/limit it for the kids), and with complete cable-tv/satellite hook-up (and what the benefits have been). Although my husband and I don't watch tv constantly, I can see how the kids would want to watch more and more as they got older...... and I don't think I've ever heard of a study touting the benefits of tv viewing in today's world. Any comments are appreaciated! thanks! p.s. I have been renting videos for the kids.

Sure, you might miss educational tv, or big news event...but there are plenty of educational videos and other ways to get news. Plus, left without the stimulation of tv, kids do plenty of educational things on their own, fantasy play etc. And think of what you can do with the extra money per month that would go to cable/satellite!

Having had kids both with and without television, I think the best thing about having a tv/vcr is being able to watch movies when they're sick or just really being a pain. Then, you can use the video to give yourself a break. Also, your kids can have some exposure to pop culture and not be out of the swim of things totally at school. But the rest of the time, you don't have to argue about the amount of time spent watching, what they can watch, etc.

On the few occasions I do watch tv, I don't enjoy it in general. I grew up glued to the tube, too. I think you'll find that giving yourself a break from the medium gives you both more time and more peace.

Good luck with your decision. Meghan

Now, the 9-year old mostly scorns TV as a waste of time. He likes to watch baseball and has a new passion for Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, but abhors the commercials and has developed a healthy skepticism about marketing. He often will lose interest in the little TV he watches, and will go back to playing ball, using the computer or torturing his brother. The little one still likes videos -- now full-length Disney movies -- but is fine about watching only small amounts over several days, and never asks to watch TV. Leslie

My point is, there's very little to lose by never watching TV again, and a great deal to gain. When you're not sitting slack-jawed in front of the tube all evening, you can:

* Cook meals
* Read books - to your kids and for yourself
* Listen to music and dance around
* Talk
* Have friends over.
* Play

Be brave! Take back your evenings! I'll get off my soapbox now. Julie

There are rumors of a link between ADD and TV - I haven't found any conclusive evidence to support that claim, but I do know that the U.S. prescribes more Ritalin than the rest of the world combined. Plus, we have the highest number of TV's per capita. Coincidence? There is also evidence to support the link between the kind of light emitted from TV and hyperactivity and many allergies in children. And, please do not even think twice about the loss of instructional programs - there is nothing on TV that cannot be learned another way.

I support whole-heartedly your decision not to plug in (even if it's only short term). By not having cable, you completely remove the inevitable argument of what to watch and when. Not to mention the crass commercials your little ones will gleefully miss. We have lived completely TV free for 2 years now - when my now 4 year old asks why we don't have one, I just remind him we are too busy. Hopefully, you will be too. Carol

The down side is that they find it harder to "fit in" with other kids who have grown up with t.v. as their major influence. Our kids don't know who the stars are, nor do they care, and they are not interested in conformity. (But their vocabularies are excellent! No valley speak or reduction of language to the word, "KEWL", or "AWESOME".) And this can be a problem, as well as a strength.

I say, if you've already started this t.v.-less path, even if inadvertently, keep on keeping on. Don't get the cable. After a while, if you SHOULD watch some t.v., the shock will be memorable. Yes, there are good things on commercial t.v., but not most of it, and the set is available always. I shall, here quote my 13 year old daughter who wrote down, when I asked for her reflections:

"T.V., OR NOT T.V., THAT IS THE QUESTION! I can't say that t.v. is completely evil. Nor can I say it's a must. But what I can say to start out this letter is that t.v. has its very own personality. It is simple and complex at the same time. It draws your attention, yet you may have no interest in it. We aren't dealing with any normal personality, here (an animal, perhaps). No, we're talking serious........"

She told me she wasn't finished. But I think it's enough. Then, she went upstairs to make jewelry. Good luck. Tobie

As it happens, "watching TV" is something we have done when staying in a hotel and usually it's torture for everybody. Once we watched a program on sharks (well, 10 minutes) and a program about the Andes. We tried watching some of the Olympics, which IMHO was horrible as media. Amazingly, the X-Games was the most civil, humane and interesting TV I'd seen in some time.

Once every blue moon, we will be finishing dinner after a long day, tired of talking about "important" things, and my husband or I will joke, "I wonder what's on TV?" Then we pull out some paper and do Exquisite Corpses. Claire

As for the effect of TV and video games on social development, you all probably read about the recent research which showed significantly reduced aggressive behavior when TV/video consumption was reduced. This initial study did not monitor the content of the shows/games, so it is yet to be known whether the improved social behavior was due to reduced exposure to media violence, or to the increase in time available for interaction with live human beings. The original JAMA article can be found at http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/issues/current/rfull/poa00191.html)

And then there are all the studies which show that we are raising a nation of couch potatoes - inks between hours of TV watched and school test scores, obesity, aggression, verbal and social skills...all seems like common sense. I think most of us know this, but I have been surprised that otherwise thoughtful parents have, I think in large part due to the stress of our everyday lives, not given much thought to allowing TV to be a partner in raising their children. Dr. Johnson's article, cited above, is aptly named "Strangers in Our Homes".

I worry about my daughter's former best friend, a boy of eight. My daughter no longer wants to go to his house as all he wants to do for hours and hours at a time is play computer games and watch cartoons. He even brought his Gameboy along to our shared summer vacation on a beautiful island on the Great Lakes. He couldn't be coaxed outside to swim, catch bugs, paint their bodies, build things...to him life took place on a screen. He probably spends 20 hours a week in front of a screen, which is *average* for his age (and ten times more than my kids do.)

I think that TV is a lot like junk food. A little bit now and then won't hurt - even a binge now and then - but a steady diet of TV means you're probably missing out on getting healthy helpings of some important nutrients - like imaginative play, exercise, art, poetry, reading, and conversation. Even a steady diet of PBS (which is what my kids had at one point) isn't necessarily all that great, compared to spending time reading, playing, and running outside. A few years ago, at our first kindergarten conference, my daughter's teacher told us that she assumed we didn't watch much TV. When I asked how she knew, she said that children like my daughter were becoming more rare - she has a much better attention span and ability to focus, a lively imagination which is not based on Disney characters, and a phenomenal vocabulary derived from lots and lots of books.

I'm raising my kids the way I was raised - with very very limited TV. We have family movie night every other Friday - "Duck Soup" by the Marx Brothers was a great hit with our 5 and 8 year old recently. We all watch together. When we do watch commercial TV, as during the debates, or the Olympics, when an ad comes along it is greeted with the same skepticism which which I was raised. My kids seem to be much more resilient and savvy about marketing, fads, etc. than some of their peers, who by kindergarten were already hooked on brand names. I know I can't put my kids in a bubble - that's not healthy either - but I think they can be at least partially inoculated by a skeptical approach to consuming mass media.

I don't think we want to get into a "holier than thou" place with it, where those who don't watch are better than those who do - but neither do I want to buy the argument that we *need* to watch TV in order to share a common culture. It may be true that TV is the greatest (lowest) common denominator these days, but it's nothing to be proud of, and it's nothing I want to be a part of. As for being left out of popular culture - I grew up with very limited TV - we were allowed to watch a total of 1-1/2 hours *per week*, (though when Star Trek came along my dad waived the limit for that show alone! So of course we know all the episodes by heart). Okay, I did sneak over to my friend's house to watch Dark Shadows.

I suppose I was somewhat "out of it" in terms of knowing all the TV culture references - but I was pretty good at faking familiarity with Gilligan's Island, just as my kids are very good at faking Pokemon knowledge. And on the other hand, my TV-plugged friends could also be said to be "out of it" in missing out on our truly nourishing culture - playing musical instruments, family plays, family poetry, art projects, building treehouses, playing cards, reading Greek myths, playing Scrabble, planting gardens...

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. I've put my kids in front of Kratt's Kreatures when I've needed a break, for crying out loud...but I do think there is much more to be gained by limiting or avoiding TV than there is by using it as a daily babysitter, or the default way to "zone out". People tell me their kids "need it". It is obviously a learned need. What did kids do before TV was invented? What they really need is time to cuddle with a parent and a good book, or time to build with legos, or time to putter around doing nothing. Sure, I grew up in a time and place in which I could just go play at the corner with the neighbors, and I had three siblings to play with, and my Mom was at home. But even though times have changed, there are plenty of families with one kid and two working parents who've managed to turn off the TV. These kids have vivid imaginations, superlative vocabularies, and rich inner resources that will carry them through life. That's a greater gift than the highest score on Duke Nuke 'Em or encyclopedic knowledge of every Scooby- Doo episode, no? Natasha

Around ages 8-9-10, we noticed that our kids were requesting an inordinate number of playdates at the homes of people who were not especially close friends, and we figured out that they went there to watch TV. At this point, we decided we'd rather allow limited TV/movies (it is now 2 hours a week each, and they get to watch each other's, with various exceptions of more) than have them visiting people they didn't really care much about just to watch TV. (There are also the "screens" of computer games and gameboy, which we used to limit quite severely, and have loosened up on as well as the kids are older. We also take them to movies in theatres now, which we almost never did until a couple of years ago--this seems to be more important from a social hipness point of view than particular TV shows...) On the other hand, I know of "no-TV" homes where the children have little interest in TV even when they get older, so I think you have to play this issue by ear--every child is an individual.

Re whether other kids will want to come over to your house--somewhat to my surprise, we have had very little problem with this. Most kids know that at other people's homes, there are different rules and different activities, and they take it in stride. This continues to be true at 12 and 13--my kids often "use up" their TV/movie turns in one orgy, and have no turns left when their friends come to visit. Our kids are very social, and about 75% of their frequent playdates are at our home, so this is an encouraging fact. Good luck. Joan

To answer your question, my younger siblings never seemed to be at a loss for friends, and our house was the one where all the kids came. When the TV was put away, my siblings would play checkers together, draw, play baseball with friends and ride their bikes. They spent a lot more time outside. When the TV was brought back out of the closet, they would resume their place in front of it, and consequently would be less creative.

Interestingly enough, as an adult, I watch very little TV, usually mute the commercials unless it's during the Olympics or the Superbowl, and married a non-TV watcher. As a result, my 13 month-old doesn't watch TV either. She doesn't know who Elmo or Barney is. She doesn't really care too much if the TV is on or off (but is facinated with the remote control, and the DVD buttons!). We've bought her some movies like Babe, Chicken Run, Tarzan, and Wallace & Grommit, but watch them only occasionally. angela

I also excluded violent movies. He's never seen one that I know of. He wasn't interested. We talked a lot for years about these things. Still do. Orientation to the world is critical. It was part of a general education about resisting peer pressure (something which adults need as well). He was always okay about it and he and his friends did other things.

I taught him how to handle peer requests for things we don't do at our house, or alternatively to get new friends if TV was so important. I was a single mom who closely controlled where my son went so there was never a problem of "always at a friends house". I wouldn't allow that unless I knew the parents terribly well, and not even then.

I wouldn't want Jerry Springer educating my kid. Or some other parent whose standards are unclear or unknown. My kid was MY job! He is now a compassionate adult, dislikes TV, is inclined to resist social pressure, likes to be outdoors more than he likes computers, and is my good friend. It was a lot of work, but I consider the experiment a success. Christine

As for whether other kids choose not to come to your house because you don't have tv: I don't recall too much about this. Since we had the tv set and the vcr they could always have a movie. I encouraged and provided other types of activities and I think if this is done early-on other kids may find your house the one that's more interesting and engaging.

I bemoan the violence and salaciousness on tv and think kids of all ages should be directed to other engaging, positive activities rather than sitting and being passively "entertained". Linnea

Right this very moment they're watching a tape of "Junkyard Wars" from the Learning Channel (teams making fabulous machines out of junk to do tasks like catapulting cabbages at a target) -- and they also enjoy "Battle Bots" on Comedy Central (homemade robots doing battle one-on-one) and "Malcolm in the Middle". All three of these shows encourage thinking, problem solving, and taking life with a grain of salt. Good lessons for all of us. Heather

Eliminating or Limiting TV Viewing

Now that our television is broken, our family (my husband and two young children) has the opportunity to see what is like to live without TV for a while. I would be interested in finding out how other families have adjusted to a TV free existence. How do you wean yourself and your family?

My daughter likes to watch Arthur, Blues Clues and Zoomobafu, I watch the news and my husband watches Star Trek and Discovery Channel. Occassionally we channel surf out of boredom. We rent videos once or twice a month. In addition to watching educational television my four year old watches Disney videos - I would be interested in finding out what others think. Are videos O.K. for kids? How much is too much? Is this better than watching TV?

Of course you can't avoid it altogether--my mother-in-law sent us a video of the Lion King. Our daughter (now 4) insists on watching it every now and then. One thing I've noticed since we've stopped watching TV and videos: continual TV watching desensitizes you to violence. I never really realized how violent the Lion King is. It actually feels shocking to me today, although when I first watched it I remember thinking "what a nice children's movie."

Another plus: while all her classmates are demanding expensive brand-name toys, our daughter has none of those advertising-fed desires.

I respect your consideration of eliminating TV instead of simply buying a new one or fixing the broken one. TV has always been an issue in our household - even before our son was born, but we have managed to have happy, fulfilling lives even without Seinfeld and Barney.

We have never owned a TV, not even a small black and white that we kept hidden in the closet for special occassions! TV is just not a part of our lives. My son is five and we do not have a problem with him watching TV at his friend's houses. We are not radical, we simply do not want the stresses that TV creates in our home. At night, instead of watching TV, we take family walks. We visit friends in the neighborhood. We have long baths where my husband pulls out his guitar and sings with my son. Sometimes my husband or I will work and the other one of us will play with my son. We read a lot! And my son is not totally deprived on this kind of thing since we allow him to play on the computer for 30 minutes to an hour each day. We do not in any way miss the TV, but this could be because we never had it. We don't have a garage either or a swing set in the backyard or a dog. Some people have those, we don't.

I imagine it will take some getting used to by everyone in the family. It will certainly require more hands-on time with the kids since you can't just plop them down in front of the TV, but I believe they will eventually find other things to do. And they won't feel left out with other things to do. And they won't feel left out with their friends. My son has always been able to join the other kids when they talk about any TV-related thing, whether it be Pokemon or Blues Clues or Spiderman or Sesame Street or whatever. He is quite aware of all of the characters of Star Wars, though he hasn't seen the movie or even any of the commercials! Good luck with your decision.

Starting when my daughter was around 1, she would watch PBS both in the morning and evening, as well as some videos (like Spot). Again, I was impressed that this was too much, and tried to limit her to an hour a day. Recently we decided to move the television from the living room into our bedroon - it's not in the center of the house, and our daughter (now almost three) is not constantly asking for a movie or a show. We found this to work rather well. She now watches an hour of PBS a day, and an ocassional well chosen video. My younger daughter is just a year old, and she has no interest whatsoever in television. I wouldn't mind getting rid of it altogether, but we've decided to keep it for the sake of news, my husband and I to get a movie, etc. I really find this helps to have the TV out of the main part of the house. I only turn it on to see a specific show, and we never have it on as "background noise"

The benefit to us is great too. We don't turn the TV on either and there is so much to do I can't imagine when I'd get everything done if I sat down and watched television.

One more note: It's incredible how stupid some of the shows and commercials seem after you haven't watched TV for a while.

Berry Brazelton recommends having only one tv per household as a way to let parents be more involved in their kids' tv watching and to have tv time also be a time of learning to share/take turns.