“Hi, I’m Cindy and I let my children watch TV… Sometimes.”
“Uh, Cindy, therapy isn’t going to work unless you are completely honest with the group.”
“OK. OK. You want the truth? Here’s the truth. When I need to make supper, on goes the babysitter. When I need to focus on something with one of the kids but not all of them, I put on the missing member of the family. When they’re too loud, suddenly Avengers is on to keep them quiet. And, yes, when I just want to site for a hot cup of tea without children literally crawling all over me, I put on the TV. OK. OK?!”
*Melts into a corner from all the mommy guilt*
Seriously though. My kids watch a lot of TV.
Honestly I never felt bad about it. I really didn’t. The reality is that we had 3 kids in the space of 4 years and so those years are defined by the need to survive. At the end of the day, it was put the TV on or risk losing my sanity. And really, I’ll take a few hours of watching TV to make me a better parent any day.
They have a busy day at school and just like we like to veg in front of the TV in the evening to watch our favourite series, so do they. I’m not going to deny them one of my most favourite things to do. It’s all about moderation. Which being said, I say they watch a lot of TV, but they also go to school, ballet, play dates, busy weekends etc. No shortage of other stimuli to help keep them active too.
Here’s the thing though.
I found that I was putting the TV on every day out of habit. Not because they wanted to watch something, or even because I needed them to watch something. Just because that’s what we were doing.
So one day I didn’t.
Instead I sent them to their room to play.
At first it was a disaster. They fought for a good 30 minutes. I almost gave up.
I don’t know about you, but refereeing fights about who won’t talk to the other, or who said what or what colour the sky is can be kind of the opposite of the aim of this exercise. But I pushed on and so did they. Suddenly they were on imaginary trains, riding through candy cane forests, all while pretending they were monkeys.
And I was having a cup of tea by myself.
While it was still hot.
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12 comments
Letting Go Of The Grip Of The Rectangular Babysitter (AKA the TV) http://t.co/QOy2aROIZY http://t.co/BXpZy6dKIp
Letting Go Of The Grip Of The Rectangular Babysitter (AKA the TV) http://t.co/FKGQTO1Q7T via @cindyalfino
You’re not the only one….
Yeah I am trying this now as well, mostly it’s ok. But Elijah is so tired after kindy that some days we just let them watch for 20 min and then it’s off to play. But survival and Curious George are synonymous to me…
I watched a whole lot of TV growing up and turned out to be perfectly fine 🙂
Do you let your kids watch TV? Yay or Nay? http://t.co/63BbpogABk via @cindyalfino
Letting Go Of The Grip Of The Rectangular Babysitter (AKA the TV) http://t.co/QOy2aROIZY
I have been trying to let this go to but even though I don’t switch on my tv I live with my parents and there tv is always as in always on so even if I try to get my sons attention when putting ours off he runs straight to his grand parents and watches tv with them I wish they would just switch everything off so we can spend family time together but nope , if its not a tv its a cellphone I honestly have to say my parents are worse than teenagers
Great post. You know I have experienced the same and it was rather a habit. At first I also couldn’t deal with playing referee but it got better. We decided to disconnect the DSTV and now we have a media player with movies on and they actually have completely broken the habit and so have I. We still have some referee moments but it has truly gotten better. They are pretty happy these days to watch one maybe two movies a day spaced out nicely between getting home from school and going to bed and for the rest it is off and they actually find things to occupy themselves with. The biggest beauty for me was that we actually had little or no explaining to do, they just accepted it without any argument. On my part half the reason I didn’t do it sooner was because I was concerned they would feel like they were losing something they loved but that wasn’t the case at all.
Great post. You know I have experienced the same and it was rather a habit. At first I also couldn… http://t.co/k4PeR5zLDz
This is often a debate with parents and one of the biggest culprits for mom guilt – sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do! We only have two little ones and we made a rule that there is no TV Mondays – Thursdays and it has worked for us so far… Durban weather allows for A LOT of outdoor time, we have lots of afternoon activities and play groups, both my kiddies still have a nap and I have an unbelievable nanny who helps me too.
The one thing that has saved us too is that this has been a rule from the very beginning so my girls know no different!
x
So true – everyone has a bit of a strong opinion on it and get defensive about it. But like you say, we do what we need to do to make it through the day. And I think that’s OK.