Well, my kids did great! I think they watched 3 videos this week total and stuck to the 30 minutes per day rule for the computer with minimal protesting. They are pretty good at finding something else to do. I did well at being consistent on enforcing that.
The rest of it went pretty poorly. I did well on Monday with keeping my computer usage under control and I really liked it. I only used it at the set times and it really felt good. I felt different - less spastic and rushed and I definitely got more done. I have no good explanation for why I did not continue for the rest of the week since it was really nice. Old habits die hard, I guess.
I am also embarrassed to say I did not do the one activity per day I had planned to do with my kids. My excuse is that they were finding things to do so nicely that I did not have to come up with anything but really I am sure there were times I could have done this. I was a bit thrown off by some things that happened this week and just wasn't able to get it together. We did do some extra reading this week after getting a big new pile of library books!
Now I need to think about what I want to do with my computer habits moving forward....
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Turnoff Week Blog Challenge
It is time again for the Turnoff Week Blog Challenge. This will be our second year participating. I can't believe it is time again already, I feel like I just did this. I think this is a great chance to evaluate how we are doing and set some goals and priorities for our family.
Our current status:
I am happy with the limited amount of time my kids watch TV, I am not going to do a TV-free week. I will outline our goals below.
Our goals for the week:
Our current status:
- My kids are allowed to watch 1 video (30 mins-1 hour) each day. Most days they do not even ask for one.
- I don’t watch any television at all.
- Both my kids love playing games and typing on the computer and I have been waffling on the time limits and they have been spending a lot of time doing that.
- I spend way too much time checking email and reading blogs.
I am happy with the limited amount of time my kids watch TV, I am not going to do a TV-free week. I will outline our goals below.
Our goals for the week:
- Limit my kids to 30 minutes each on the computer per day using a free timer program I found online.
- Limit my computer usage by only using it during set periods of time during the day. I think those times will be 7-7:30am, 1-1:30pm, and 7:00-7:30pm. I keep my task list on my computer so I will have to print that in the mornings so I won't go to check it and get "trapped" by the lure of my email.
- Participate in one craft or activity each day with my kids (using that time I would have been reading random blogs!)
Saturday, February 02, 2008
My Television History
Participation in the Unplugged Project has got me thinking a lot about television and the lack of television in our lives. It also prompted me to do a little reading, at sites like Instead of TV. This has been a great encouragement to me, as I don't know anyone (besides my sisters) who impose many if any limits on their children's television viewing. Seeing that there are others who agree with me on television helps to boost my confidence that I am doing the right thing by my kids.
When I was a child, my mother limited our television viewing to 1 hour per day. It is funny to me now that that seemed like such a difficult and harsh restriction when now 1 hour seems more than generous. I have vivid members of how confining that was and how much my sisters and I hated the limits.
When I was in high school, I had an assignment to write a research paper and the topic I chose was the negative effects of television viewing on children. (If I sound like a nerd, that's because I am a nerd.) Anyway, it was pretty clear to me from that research I did that television viweing was not a good thing.
In college and for a year or so after college, I did not have a TV. This was mostly because I was too cheap to buy one and too busy to watch one. But there were several short periods during those years where I had a television (while interning in the summer and on business trips) and I found that I watched tons of TV. That box is totally addicting to me. Once I turn it on, I have such a struggle to ever turn it off, even watching things I barely liked. I would not get the things done that I needed (or wanted) to and I would always stay up way too late and have to drag myself out of bed in the morning.
Now, we have a television but we do not have cable and for some odd reason live in a little bubble that gets no broadcast television reception. So that actually makes it pretty easy. We have some videos and dvds that my children watch, although I limit them to 1 per day. (These are mostly 30 minutes long.) I don't miss watching at all. The only issue I have is how isolated I feel when I get together with others and they are talking about all the latest shows. And this issue bothers me for my children. My kids are still young but I worry about them feeling left out and ignorant at school because they don't know about all the characters and shows.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on watching television....
When I was a child, my mother limited our television viewing to 1 hour per day. It is funny to me now that that seemed like such a difficult and harsh restriction when now 1 hour seems more than generous. I have vivid members of how confining that was and how much my sisters and I hated the limits.
When I was in high school, I had an assignment to write a research paper and the topic I chose was the negative effects of television viewing on children. (If I sound like a nerd, that's because I am a nerd.) Anyway, it was pretty clear to me from that research I did that television viweing was not a good thing.
In college and for a year or so after college, I did not have a TV. This was mostly because I was too cheap to buy one and too busy to watch one. But there were several short periods during those years where I had a television (while interning in the summer and on business trips) and I found that I watched tons of TV. That box is totally addicting to me. Once I turn it on, I have such a struggle to ever turn it off, even watching things I barely liked. I would not get the things done that I needed (or wanted) to and I would always stay up way too late and have to drag myself out of bed in the morning.
Now, we have a television but we do not have cable and for some odd reason live in a little bubble that gets no broadcast television reception. So that actually makes it pretty easy. We have some videos and dvds that my children watch, although I limit them to 1 per day. (These are mostly 30 minutes long.) I don't miss watching at all. The only issue I have is how isolated I feel when I get together with others and they are talking about all the latest shows. And this issue bothers me for my children. My kids are still young but I worry about them feeling left out and ignorant at school because they don't know about all the characters and shows.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on watching television....
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