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I just thought I'd share what we do here. I'm a single mom with a 3yo son
and I don't have to work. So I may have quite a bit more flexibility for
experimentation than some others on here, but here's what I've been trying.

Lately he's been watching a lot of tv again and I got weird about it again,
but rather than make hasty changes or try to revoke the complete freedom I
allowed <g> him, I read on the unschooling.com boards and looked at our
situation a bit more creatively.

I've moved the child size play table from the dining room near all the craft
stuff into the living room in front of the tv. We were doing everything in
there anyway, it just made it more comfortable and acceptable in some way.
Luckily one of the chairs is missing the arms so my wonderfully womanly butt
fits there.:-) I don't limit tv at all: content, time, duration, etc. I have
been watching with him more than I used to. (Sometimes this is a real problem
for me. I don't enjoy watching things more than once or twice at most. And he
likes seeing things repeatedly. I always try to sit attentive through the
first viewing, but sometimes on the second, third and so on I have something
to do that comes second if he needs me.) He asks me a lot of questions now
about nearly everything on tv. The material things he's never seen before,
the personal interactions/dynamics/emotions between characters, the slang
terms/figures of speech, the new words, the different locations, different
occupations, etc. There have been times when he's asked me to turn things he
wanted to watch off because they upset him (scare, sadden, etc).

I cringe when I see him light up at the toys and stuff that are advertised,
but I try to be honest and open with anything he brings up (or will let me
bring up!) I have learned a lot about advertising from living and research.
If and when I can I will share all that I know with him; but even at 3, I can
tell that he can see beyond some of it. I'm leaning towards helping him be
more informed and equipped rather than shielded and protected. And of course,
always being there for shielding and protecting when it's needed/asked for.

I bring the food in there, I bring crafts in there, sometimes he joins in and
sometimes he doesn't. When I'm really buggin out about it, I make sure that
I'm giving him plenty of opportunities to do cool stuff in and out of the
house. And if he still wants to watch tv, then he's deciding from a variety
of options and I know it's what he wants/needs.

As someone suggested on one of the message boards, I try to make sure there
is plenty of time and props to recreate play from the stuff he watches. Like
toys from ads that I say, "we could try to make that if you'd like" sometimes
yes, sometimes no. And on the intro to one of the movies we rented he saw an
ad for 'Cats' and now we're going to try to make a cat costume. And a lot of
the stuff just naturally works into the free play around the house with toys
and props and stuff. He can recreate what he sees, adjust it, change it,
intensify it......play around with a new concept in his own creative way.

Tv is stimulating lots of interests and conversation and learning. And
sometimes I still think, "Geez, he's like a zombie! I'm an awful mom, what
would people say?" But I'm trying to separate my need to fit in from my
desire to parent the best way I can. And also reading all the technical,
intelligent articles on here about how great tv watching is really helps me.

So....ramble ramble ramble....that's what we're doing now. Writing this has
been great for me, lol, I think we're doing better than I thought we were!

Brenda


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