dail

I agree. My adult kids, now 29 <!?> and 23 both self censored themselves.
My youngest watches TV but is just as happy to turn it off and play a board game w me or go fro a run /bike ride.
I sometimes feel the need to reminder her or other options but I don't need to limit her TV, she does that herself.

Yes, I know, I have often heard, "But, my child will do nothing except watch TV if I let her/him!".

I am not sure but I think,
based on observation, this is because they have not had the freedom to take TV watching it their complete fulfillment.

Just like detoxing from school, if the process is interfered w it takes a lot longer for them to emerge. Even if a concerned parent says, "Well, I know s/he need to heal from ps, so will let him/her veg for x amount of time but then, I need to ask for some kind of work in <say> just < a little bit of> math" Zip, the detoxing kid has to start the healing process over.

The way I came to know unschooling was when my son came out of ps in the beginning of the 10th grade. At first he wanted a strict schedule that parallel ps's subjects. This worked really well for a few weeks. Then I heard him crying in the middle of the night.
He said, "Mom, I feel like I have wasted my life! I have learned more from you and dad than I did in all my years in school"
< breaks your heart, doesn't it?>

Then he crashed. Luckily I had heard of deschooling and knew what he was doing. He father was very alarmed. I could see our son was improving, though, because he started getting his sense of humor back, got along better w sibs, and was voluntarily helping around the house/business.

This brings me to TV:
He watched A LOT! of TV during this period. Soon, left on his own, his choices in programs improved.
He loved Britsh Comedies [ which I feel was his life line since he was so hurt]
Discovery Channel{ this was a good thing!},
History Channel { he knows, not only more history than I ever did in pHs, but he know the cause and effect of historical events}
and PBS.

I knew he was on the right unschooling track when he watched a teachers 3 hr block in the middle of the night on Trigonometry.
The next day he asked me to pick him up a book on Trig!
And, yes, he did use it. He and his dad were always high in math and science. :-)

Dail

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]