TV, etc
Karen Kahn
Thank you, Deb for that long & winding recall of your family's life with TV!
I was the (one of the) first to bring up this idea of the "evil" of TV in this group, and I have enjoyed reading everyone's opinions.
My sons are still at the point where they watch a LOT -- the 8yo glued to cartoons, the 12yo more interested in Star Trek. I encourage things like the History Channel, etc., but right now I think they're still detoxing from my prior restrictions (Animal Planet only for 2 hrs max).
I read these posts to encourage me to have faith, to know that eventually my boys will use their freedom to make choices that serve them (of course, that is my judgment speaking!). My dh is having doubts, as the boys are fighting this morning over the computer game they're both obsessed with -- he wants to go back to enforcing the Law, and taking the CD away. I had a talk with them about this being a peaceful house, and that it's stressful for their father and me to hear them screaming at each other. In the past, we were quick to blame the instrument (TV or computer) for "causing" them to fight with each other. This time I asked them to work out their difficulty (I would help if they wanted me to) in the spirit of our family's constitution, value and mission statements that we all created together.
It feels so much better to handle it this way than to create a arbitrary parental law/punishment, but it certainly is a matter of retraining ourselves. We weren't blessed with discovering this unschooling approach until well into their lives, so we're ALL detoxing from our familiar patterns.
Thanks to the "old-timers" who are willing to stick with us newbies and help us through our doubts.
Karen
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I was the (one of the) first to bring up this idea of the "evil" of TV in this group, and I have enjoyed reading everyone's opinions.
My sons are still at the point where they watch a LOT -- the 8yo glued to cartoons, the 12yo more interested in Star Trek. I encourage things like the History Channel, etc., but right now I think they're still detoxing from my prior restrictions (Animal Planet only for 2 hrs max).
I read these posts to encourage me to have faith, to know that eventually my boys will use their freedom to make choices that serve them (of course, that is my judgment speaking!). My dh is having doubts, as the boys are fighting this morning over the computer game they're both obsessed with -- he wants to go back to enforcing the Law, and taking the CD away. I had a talk with them about this being a peaceful house, and that it's stressful for their father and me to hear them screaming at each other. In the past, we were quick to blame the instrument (TV or computer) for "causing" them to fight with each other. This time I asked them to work out their difficulty (I would help if they wanted me to) in the spirit of our family's constitution, value and mission statements that we all created together.
It feels so much better to handle it this way than to create a arbitrary parental law/punishment, but it certainly is a matter of retraining ourselves. We weren't blessed with discovering this unschooling approach until well into their lives, so we're ALL detoxing from our familiar patterns.
Thanks to the "old-timers" who are willing to stick with us newbies and help us through our doubts.
Karen
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]