“I can’t imagine where we ever found time to watch TV.” This observation by Mary Mohler in her article, “unplugged”, in the March 1994, Ladies’ Home Journal, describes my feelings, after we, too, several years ago, decided not to give television our valuable free time. Her experiment, in which she (a very busy single parent and professional journalist) and her family went without TV “cold turkey” for several weeks, showed her how much television influenced her children’s behaviors, vocabulary, attitudes and choices.
Spurred by her 10-year-old daughter’s sarcastic remarks that echoed smart mouthed sitcom kids and reinforced by the gutter language and sexual references that seem to be a part of even “family” shows, they unplugged the set! However, she found hidden benefits not even imagined ... and her children discovered they could actually, quite easily, live without television.
I, too, am concerned about kids and language ... insolent is how my mom would have labeled the way TV and real-life kids talk to parents ... I call it verbal bashing, and it is damaging to self-esteem, destructive to communication and society. I routinely hear very young children use ugly words heard on TV, movies, peers and parents (in the home, right?).
Violence on TV is linked to societal violence ... no other influence is so pervasive, so available, so invading of our homes, reaching all of us. Kids, apparently, should be great witnesses in court. By the time they are twelve, they have seen 100,000 violent incidents and “witnessed” 8,000 murders on television. Everything we know about how young children learn tells us that they are concrete learners. THAT MEANS THEY BELIEV E WHAT THEY SEE. Many shows are little more than “how-to” manuals, giving recipes for how crimes can be carried out! “T.V.” can mean “Teaching Violence”.
If you aren’t convinced TV creates more problems than it solves, try your own experiment ... find out how much of your valuable free time you and your family give to television. Like Ms. Mohler, you may find you spend “fake” family time together, not talking, not interacting, just collapsing in front of the boob tube. Her children became readers ... yours can, too. You may find you know more about your children because you are talking to one another. You may learn to describe TV as a kind of narcotic, as she does. Watch the faces of kids “on the tube” ... I can see the glazed eyes, the passive bodies (couch potato-ettes?), the unwillingness to give it up, the poor school grades, the inability to communicate meaningfully.
Kicking TV is easier if you plan. Seek cooperation but don’t ask for approval ... remember, you are the parent! Start while kids are busy and plan some activities, at first, to replace the chunks of time TV usually takes up. You will “beat the clock” by taming TV, adding hours to your day and quality to your life.
