Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, June 11, 2007 10:48 am

I have recently come upon another blogger who is trying to unplug her family. Celtic Mommy and her family have decided to give TV-free life it a try! So far, she has written three posts on her progress.

Post number one concerns her observations through Day 3. Already by Day 3 she noticed that she had more time to crochet and take walks. Her two little boys didn’t seem to miss TV and were sleepier at bedtime (a definite plus!).

Her second post is entitled “Unplugged Evolution (a.k.a. Day 7).” Here Celtic Mommy describes happier meal times, the joy of cooking with music instead of a TV show, and a realization: “As I drifted off, I thought about everything we’d done this weekend and realized much of it could not have been done if the boob tube had been on.” She also says: “Today will be day seven of many many more days of being “unplugged” in the house. In just six short days, I have noticed a change in Emerson’s play habits and attention span.”

Post number three is a quick update: During a morning walk they pass by the filming of what they at first thought was a TV show (it actually turned out to be a movie). TV can be hard to escape, especially in Southern California!

Celtic Mommy’s observations of the change in behavior of her son are not unusual. In a National Survey of TV-free families, one of the academic benefits of life without TV was reported to be the following: “A much longer attention span in TV free children was noted in more than 200 different essays. Comments included: Where there is boredom, creativity and self-motivation often emerge!”

I have found my own children to exhibit long attention spans for their ages and a high degree of creative play and thinking. Since my children have never had TV I have no real point of comparison, however my observations have been backed up by positive comments from their teachers.

One final thought: Celtic Mommy has also noticed “[t]he looks you get from family and friends… you’d think I’ve grown a second head when I mention that we are not watching TV to some people.” This is true and many times I have experienced the same reaction, which always amuses me.

WARNING: I am stepping on my soapbox now! I do wish that a family living without TV was not such an unusual phenomenon in our society. I firmly believe that children can only benefit from less electronic stimulation and more quiet, creative time. Why are we so surprised that kids today have short attention spans and are easily “bored” when they are constantly bombarded by the noisy, flashy, and often violent world of TV or video games?

It is hardly even possible any more to go out to lunch without enduring multiple TVs all on different channels, often with music playing on top of this cacophony. Have we humans become incapable of spending a peaceful hour or two over a quiet lunch engaged in simple conversation with one another?

Life without TV is fun and beneficial for everyone! Thank you Celtic Mommy for giving it a try! If anyone else out there has a TV Turn-Off story to tell, or wants to give it a try and report back, please let me know and I will link to you too. If you want to try it, but don’t have a blog of your own, please send me an email and I will post your observations here!

I am stepping off my soapbox now! So, how is the weather where you are today?

(For more info on “turning it off,” check out my Unplug TV Resources links in the left sidebar and my post: TV Turn-Off Week Is Over! Now What?)

Comments (1)

By Mom Unplugged, May 17, 2007 11:03 am

I just stumbled upon the story of another family who turned off the TV for a week and blogged about their experience. Valeri of For A Season and her family decided to turn it off for one week in May just as an experiment.

Among their interesting discoveries:

- How much they actually depend upon a computer for educational information instead of books.

- A need to update their board games to a more age-appropriate level.

- The house is calmer without the daily news.

- The family got a lot more sleep.

- They all read more.

- “Without noise and “stuff” to occupy our time, we were more reflective and talked more with each other.”

To read Valeri’s post, please click here: We’ve Been Unplugged!

If anyone else out there has a TV Turn-Off story to tell, or wants to give it a try for a week and report back, please let me know and I will link to you too. If you want to try it, but don’t have a blog of your own, please send me an email and I will post your results here!

Comments (5)

By Mom Unplugged, May 7, 2007 12:57 pm

Just because it is no longer “officially” TV Turn-Off Week, doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to be conscious of your family’s screen-time.

There are a lot of great reasons out there for “turning it off,” or at least minimizing your TV and computer usage. Here are a few internet resources that I have come across that really address this issue nicely:

• The Not Quite Crunchy Parent, a participant in my TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge, wrote two very interesting posts about TV. The first, TV Turnoff Talk, is a great general list of some excellent reasons to turn off the TV. The second, The Ancillary Impact of Too Much TV, contains some great links to current scientific research on the effects of TV on children.

A few reasons on her list include the well-known facts that excessive TV appears to contribute to childhood obesity and violence, as well as the behavioral benefits demonstrated by TV-free children: less aggression, more creativity, longer attention spans, and an interest in reading.

• The Simple Dollar has a great post entitled Ten Financial Reasons To Turn Off Your Television - And Ten Things To Replace It With. If money is what speaks to you, then read it!

Think of what you could spend your money on (or put into savings) without a cable bill and the added electricity of one or more TVs in your house. Then there are the less obvious financial benefits such as less exposure to commercial marketing (perhaps you’ll save money there too!) and spending less money on fast-food or ready-made meals because you don’t have time to make a dinner from scratch if you have to catch your favorite show.

I really like this post because it has some very creative reasons for turning it off, many of which I had never thought of before. It is definitely worth a read and will make you think about your money, and how TV affects your spending.

• There are websites out there that also encourage less TV-watching. I link to some of them in my left sidebar. I won’t relist them all here, but I will highlight a few of them.

The Center For Screen Time Awareness may be the best known of these websites, since they are the sponsor of the annual National TV Turn-Off Week. Several others that are a good resource and have lots of interesting links are TV Smarter, LimiTV, White Dot and Kill Your Television (rather “emphatic,” but quite complete). White Dot also has a Turning Off TV Forum.

• If you are wondering what TV-free kids are like, here is a link to one of my favorite articles (found on The Center For Screen Time Awareness website): “TV Free Families: Are They Lola Granolas, Normal Joes or High and Holy Snots?” This article presents the results of a 1999 study conducted by Barbara Brock, a professor of Recreation Management at Eastern Washington University. She sent a 22-page questionnaire to nearly 400 TV-free families and had a 72.7% response rate. The results are very interesting and seem to confirm the beneficial effects of turning off the TV found in other research.

My children have been TV-free their whole lives and I sometimes wonder about how that will ultimately affect them, so I find this study to be very reassuring!

• Finally, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age 2 watch no TV at all. Please read their recommendation at my post TV and Toddlers. For a while now, I have had the following sign on my blog:

It is finally being noticed and has appeared on several other blogs too. I am so pleased that others are willing to help spread the word, and I have moved my sign to a more prominent location. Please feel free to place it on your blog too. It can be found at Aylmer Press. You can also print full sized ones to hang in schools or other public places if you would like. Steve Kokette found my blog and was kind enough to contact me about his sign, so please include a link to his site if you use it. Thanks for helping spread the word!

Comments (4)

By Mom Unplugged, May 2, 2007 9:01 pm

The fifteen bloggers who participated in the TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge were not the only participants. The day before the beginning of the challenge I was contacted by a blog reader who was also interested in participating in TV Turn-Off Week. She told me her goals and promised an email update at the end of the week. She kindly gave me permission to share her TV Turn-Off story on my blog.

This reader was not concerned about turning off the TV, but worried about her ability to do without the computer, the “other screen.” Her goals for the week were the following:

“1) All computer time needs to be related either to the school carnival I am chairing or to family matters. Everything else will have to wait a week (that includes reading your blog)!

2) Try to re-focus on my New Year’s Resolution. I called it (notice the past tense) PPP. Pride (in my house), Patience (with my children) and Punctuality.

3) Read to my two younger children (ages 5 & 7) at least 20 minutes each day (we have fallen out of the habit). My son is struggling with reading so he reads to me daily. However, I need to read to him more, so he’ll be reminded about how fun books can be.

4) The kids need to be fed (with homework completed) before Dad comes home at 6:30. My dh is a great guy and he works really hard all day long. When he gets home I want him to be able to relax and have some fun with the kids.”

As promised, the day after the challenge ended she emailed me with her result:

“The good news? I was able to stick to my challenge for 4 days.

The bad (discouraging) news? See above.

I will most likely do my version of the challenge at a later date (I’ll keep you posted). I am always up for a challenge. BTW - did read with the kids more last week and we all enjoyed it. And I was more conscious of PPP (Pride, Patience and Punctuality).”

I think she should be proud of herself for having been recreationally computer-free for four days! As I learned last week, that can be very difficult. I don’t know if I could have had it off, except for strict business matters, for four days.

I like her PPP New Year’s Resolution. I think I need to work on that too, especially the “Punctuality” part! It seems that when we turn off our TVs and/or computers (whatever “screen” occupies our time), we do instantly have more time and “mental energy” for focusing on positive things like this reader’s PPP.

I had a similar personal revelation today. Today I took care of a friend’s one year-old, so I was caring for two one year-olds (only three months apart in age!). Dueling babies. It was rather like having twins I suppose. I had decided ahead of time that I would simply have to stay offline. I did check email and comments once during their nap, but otherwise I really was not online.

Since I had already decided that I would not have time for the computer today, I was able to deal with the very mobile, busy babies with mindfulness. My mind was not on what might be happening online. As a consequence, the day went quite smoothly and actually seemed almost easier than some days when it is just me and my one year-old…and my computer!

It all went better for me than during the Blog Challenge where my mind was always half on my computer even as I tried to do other things. It seems to me that FOCUS is the key to success. My reader seemed to have this experience also. Whether it is a “PPP New Year’s Resolution,” or caring for extra babies, the ability to not just turn it off, but forget it, not even expect it, is the key to success.

Thanks so much to this reader who took the time to do the challenge with us, report back, and agree to let me share her story!

Comments (5)

By Mom Unplugged, April 30, 2007 10:48 pm

This was quite an interesting week for me. As I have already mentioned multiple times, we have not had TV for 5 1/2 years, so my challenge to myself was to limit my time online. It was SO HARD!! I think I am definitely addicted.

I planned on trying to limit my online time to an hour a day. You may or may not have noticed that my posts have been far less verbose this past week, which is probably a very good thing! However, my big “problem” seems to be email. If the computer is on (unfortunately it is in the kitchen, where I am most of the time), then I want to “just quickly check” my email every time I walk by it. The pathetic thing is, that more often then not, I get this obnoxious “DING!!!” (which is computer-speak for “you loser, nobody loves you, there is no email for you, ha ha!”). Usually I can just ignore the snub and move on. But this week, I felt so guilty every time I checked my email, that every “ding” felt like being rapped on the knuckles for bad behavior!

After Tuesday, I ended up turning the computer off during the day time. I would check in the morning, and at lunch, and then again at dinner. After the kids were in bed I would do a post. The hardest time was while I was making dinner. The baby was in bed, the kids were playing elsewhere, and I was standing watching the stove with nothing else to do…and my computer would call out to me.

My kids had a great week. They didn’t notice a thing. I had planned on forbidding videos if they asked, but they never did. Among other things, they made a pretend store that sold “potry” (their spelling) - “pottery” made out of construction paper, built a fairy house in the vacant treed lot adjoining ours, built houses out of two huge boxes, read books, made birthday cards, had a Kids Cook Night, and my oldest worked on her school project about piranhas.

I was overly optimistic as to my personal goals which were as follows:

• A maximum of one hour per day online - Hard!! I averaged 1 hour 30 mins per day, which wasn’t my goal, but was less than usual.
• I will order my roses from David Austin - Didn’t do it.
• I will begin watering and weeding my garden - Nope, but most of the week was cold and windy.
• By the end of the week I will have my front porch looking planted and pretty again for spring - Sorry…cold and windy!
• I will try to read an extra book, do a craft, or play a game with my kids after school every day - Yes, we did do something extra after school every day.
• We shall have TWO Kids Cook Nights next week instead of one - Only one.
• I will buy and actually READ the book for my next book club - I bought the book and have read one-third of it.
• I will take at least one long evening bath - Never did it, I just wanted to go to sleep. Sleep or bath, I chose sleep.

But, instead of gardening I did accomplish a big goal that was not on my list, but that was in the back of my mind. I completed a large writing project that I actually never really thought I would do at all. I probably would not have done it if I had not been trying to limit my time online (and if the weather had been nicer).

This week made me far more aware of my time online. I also noticed that the days when I was more successful at avoiding the computer, really seemed more relaxed. I have found, both this week and at other times, that when I spend more time with my kids playing, reading, or just co-existing, we are all more happy and even-tempered.