trashing TV
kathy
I grew up without TV but that was the forties/fifties. Alot of
different personalities came from homes without TV, as people didn't own
them. We had lots of time and got into lots of trouble on our own. Not
having a TV didn't mean that we found ourselves in the library all the
time.
I have known a number of contemporary families that didn't have TV's and
they always had interesting, high achievement kids. The problem with
the conclusion that the total absence of home TV produced high
achievement kids is that the parents who banned TV are interesting, high
achievement people with lots of interests and activities themselves so
cause and effect is not clear.
We limited our daughters to one program/nite of their choice (Little
House usually) and specials as Roots (you can tell it was the 70's). TV
was never a major portion of their lives as was friends, sports, music
and Scouts.
They are now in their 30's and have similar policies for their
daughters.
I guess my point is it is not what you exclude as much as what you/they
include that defines or shapes the kids. If limiting TV choices
produces bitter family battles (it didn't for us), banning it totally
may be useful. I would guess the having regular trips to the library,
household chores to do, music lessons, 4-H or scouts, Y-camp, Little
League, paper routes, etc all defined the kids more then limited TV they
watched.
There is far more great quality TV on now then I possibly could watch.
We recently dropped most of the TV channels from the cable package,
because we didn't spend enuf time with Discovery, A&E, CNN, ESPN. The
VCR is daily taping something so we have something worthwhile stored
whenever there is time to watch. For me its European Journal, Jim Leher
Newshour, Nova, Frontline, the Mysteries of Space, Great Performances,
Washington Week in Review, Travels in Europe, Origins, Firing Line, and
talking heads as McLaughlon Report to find out how the political
conservatives are viewing the issues.
cheers, jim booth, red cedar meeing, lansing, mi
cheers, jim booth
Pam Rider
A San Diego newspaper columnist has a family rule that each family member
can videotape and view 1 hour of television a day. With this system, family
members can develop positive discrimination habits.
Our children will make choices throughout their lives. I strongly believe
that one of the most vital aspects of parenting is helping them select good
paths. I fear that means providing "some" opportunity for poor choices. I
certainly could have done better in this, but am very happy that it was a
priority.
Pam Rider
Trying to walk cheerfully on the Earth
Linda Rogers
I am afraid I am going to be a dissentor on this topic or at least give a
different experience.
My children are in their late teens and early twenties. Two are in
university, one of those in first year law. Both at University of Toronto.
My youngest is in her last year of high school, and a known social and
political activist at age 17. I give as my credentials for speaking that
all three are high-achieveing happy kids with many and varied interests and
impressive lists of personal achievements. All read and write well. All
play musical instruments. All still talk to me about life problems and
decisions.
So I take a deep breath and say.....I never limited their TV viewing in any
way or indeed censored much of anything they took in. It didn't seem to be
my business to do so, as long as they were making pretty good choices. They
did. I suppose if I had seen a problem, I would have but I didn't see any
point in creating one by making TV a "forbidden fruit". Faced with a choice
between TV and stories read by mom or other fun activities, TV usually was
not a choice. I did try to watch TV with my children and stay close at hand
to engage them in conversation or suggest follow-up activities. Now and
again one or the other would seem to be watching too much but before I
intervened, a new interest, club, hobby, group of friends would end it.
Just a phase.
I don't accept that "the Medium is the Message". Books are not inherently
better than television. I would much rather see my children watching the
"Civilization" series on TV than reading books that contain pornography or
incite racial hatred. Mein Kampf was a book not a TV show. Good television
can be an important part of family time and provide some common fodder for
discussion and follow-up reading. It can expose a child to an interest or
hobby or consolidate school learning. Our middle son came to realize that
History was his lifelong passion during the "Civil War" series on PBS.
Good parenting is not as simple as hard and fast rules like "No TV". It is
an ongoing hard job. When you are doing the job right, kids will have
better things to do than veg out in front of the TV. And it will be their
positive choice, not a "rule" that they resent. I saw part of that in an
incident recently. My daughter was working on a project with 2 friends.
Both came from homes that were rather strict. They were doing research on
the 'Net. I became aware that my daughter's friends were looking up
pornography on the Internet. Just when I was going to poke my head in, my
daughter said, "Can we get back to work now? This is SO boring and SO
infantile!" They did. I really think that this maturity and confidence
came from being empowered to make choices, with loving parental support,
encouragement and guidance.
I realize that mine will likely be a minority view but had to say it.
Linda Rogers
----------------------------------------------------
Linda Rogers
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Canada
lro...@vaxxine.com
family page: http://www3.sympatico.ca/douglas.rogers/douglas.rogers
GH Social Action Committee: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9378
cello page: http://www.cello.org/freepage/lrogers.htm
BPO Educational Programs: http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/5732
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.
RAS Phila
Well put. We never limited our daughter's TV watching, and she is now at
Swarthmore College, reads voraciously, and does well in her studies. She's
also politically and socially active. There's lots of good stuff on TV and in
books; they can complement each other if one makes good choices. Consider Ken
Burns' The Civil War, which makes a great book and an even better television
series. Absolutely gripping. (In opposition to many critics, I say the same
about his Baseball series, where the TV version does something no book can
do--presents action footage of Babe Ruth and Willie Mays (among many others)
doing what they did best.)
No need to ban one or the other, and it says volumes about our confidence in
our children that we speak of banning speech at all. If you ban speech, you
teach children that suppression is an appropriate response. If you teach them
to recognize good from bad speech (or positive from negative or any terms you
want to substitute), you teach them that the only proper response to a bad
idea is a better one. What lesson do we want them to learn?
Bob Seeley
Desktop Resources/Resources for Peace, 141 W. Harvey St., Philadelphia, PA
Desktop Resources Home Page: http://come.to/desktop.resources
Resources for Peace Home Page: http://come.to/peace.on.earth
Discover Germantown Home Page: http://come.to/discover.germantown
DHCano
In a message dated 98-04-02 06:59:30 EST, lro...@VAXXINE.COM writes:
>So I take a deep breath and say.....I never limited their TV viewing in any
>way or indeed censored much of anything they took in. It didn't seem to be
>my business to do so, as long as they were making pretty good choices. They
>did
With one exception, my experience has been similar.
The exception is that I did not bring TV into our home when my children were
tiny, so their very earliest and most formative years were without its
influence. In early grade school the TV was allowed in the door but there was
no time for more than an hour of TV a day (not a parental rule, just a busy
family). By 8 -10 years they were making their own (corporate) choices (one
TV, located in the family room). I can't attribute any problems they
experienced growing up to TV, since it wasn't a very large element in their
lives. And I can't claim to have raised any saints, but at 28-30 years of age
they are good people, good company, and still not TV--or computer--dependent.
Today I see toddlers with video collections, who spend hours before the small
screen. Their videos are chosen by 'well-informed', well-meaning parents
(including Friends) who would never let a child watch 'inappropriate'
material. Yet this 'eye-candy' (or 'brain-candy'?) is offered continually --
as a treat, or when the child is 'tired', or 'cross', or (yes, I've seen it
with my own eyes) as a reward during toilet-training! Or just to keep them
quietly occupied when there's high demand on parental time and attention.
They are being trained by their parents to regard electronic entertainment
(tasteful, of course) as a solution to, or consolation for, many little daily
problems, and a substitute for human interaction. This is dependency, at a
level I never saw in *any* children when mine were youngsters.
Agreed, books can be as full of trashy (or evil) content as TV or videos.
They can't be used as 'substitute companions' for tots, however. By the time
children are able to read books, they are more able to make choices -- and
they've had a lot of experience with living companions.
No matter how strictly monitored the content, I wonder what f/Friends' little
ones are learning from the regular substitution of 'virtual' family and
friends for real ones?
I wonder what their capacity for making other choices will be after being
saturated from such an early age with this form of stimulation, particularly
when it is often presented as a 'solution' to the 'problem' of getting along
with others?
Diane Cano
Brooklyn Monthly Meeting