If we don't let our kids determine for themselves what is crap and
what isn't how will they ever know the difference? Will they always look
to someone else to tell them what their opinions are if we choose to
do it for them? I want my kids to have their own opinions.
Do you think my not having a TV will prevent my kids from having their own opinions?
Do you think there's not other kinds of crap to weed through in life besides what's on TV?
Some toys are crap IMO, but if my daughter wanted one I might just buy
it for her. So she can figure it out for herself. Or maybe she would
love it. So bonus, she gets a toy that she likes, and I get a daughter
who has her own thoughts and opinions that are different from mine. That
is okay with me.
Should I intentionally expose my young children to crap on the theory that they need to learn to discern crap from good stuff?
Same with TV. After watching nothing but Baby Einstein and Sesame Street for a while, she may try these "crap" shows and not like them because there is no substance to them. Like the difference between some nice casserole and some cupcakes. She may like these fluffier shows. But I don't think that many unschooled children given the choice to watch anything they want (within reason) or to eat anything they want would choose a diet of only cupcakes. I could be wrong, I'll keep you posted.
Note from Sandra Dodd in 2017, ten years after this page was created:
I'm glad Vijay put "crap" in quotation marks. Looking at the exchange in retrospect, it was quite a crapstorm! Because the forum in which it originally arose is gone, I can't check back to what started it, but just in this section, that word was used nine (9) times. It's disturbing. But there is a page on my site which I coded in as SandraDodd.com/crap and (it turns out, coincidentally) it's also about TV. More specifically, it was a mother insulting her child's interest. It's linked at the bottom of this page. |
If you think about what's on TV, even those educational shows have had millions of dollars poured into researching how to get your kids glued to the screen, and in most cases how to get them to buy something.Really? Well it's not working because she's not glued to the screen. Plus I am wracking my brain and I can't think of what the heck they are selling on an Elmo's world DVD — other than more Elmo DVDs, lol.
Seems to me unlimited TV viewing could lead to just the opposite of free thinking -- brainwashing by the corporate culture.
In case someone missed my reason for mentioning Mander's and McKibben's books earlier, let me just say that content is NOT the whole story behind why I don't have TV. It has to do with brain research, what happens in young children's brains when they watch TV, and lots of other stuff. If anyone is really interested in finding out, there are plenty of resources and books to read.
So it's partly the parents using the TV (including violent, sexual or otherwise inappropriate content) as a babysitter that damages these young minds, and the lack of a stimulating environment outside of TV, not *just* TV itself in my opinion. I don't think there are many (if any) unschooling parents in this group who neglect to provide a stimulating environment for their kids or who allow their toddlers to watch shows with inappropriate content.
They have actually demonstrated in these same studies that Sesame Street and other educational shows (far from leading to ADD and other similar problems) actually *increase* children's attention spans and learning. What that tells me is that people are actually *underestimating* the negative effects of the inappropriate content and rapid-fire editing of commercials and other programs. Because the children whose parents only allowed educational shows would actually balance out the others in the study, KWIM? So if they are positing that every hour of TV per day that a kid under age 2 watches increases by 10% their likelihood of developing ADD, it's more like 20% or 30% if you take away the kids in the study who watch educational shows.
The difference between the average Saturday morning cartoon and Sesame
Street is very apparent to me. Sesame Street characters speak slowly and
clearly, and the scene only changes every few minutes. OTOH, there are
sometimes 20-25 cuts — maybe more — just in a 30 second commercial on
regular Sat am tv. Which is not to say that I won't ever let my daughter
watch them, but just not right now. Which is fine with her because she
doesn't care for them anyway, even the PBS cartoons like Clifford and
Sagwa that don't have commercials or lots of rapid editing.
[Vijay earlier:]
It has been my experience that children and teens who watch TV indiscriminately and unceasingly are those whose viewing is restricted.
I don't restrict viewing, I just don't have a TV.
My kids watch TV at other people's houses occasionally. I don't forbid it. But my experience with other parents who do have televisions and who do restrict it is not in line with yours.
So I rely on specific examples. I am not going to make the error of
stating or thinking that one or two specific examples would prove
anything, it's just to say, "Here's what I'm basing my decision on.
Hundreds of unschooling families have decided not to restrict TV viewing
and they've explained why it works for them. Their explanations struck a
chord with me, and I've decided to try it myself." Like I said, I'll
keep you posted on how it works out for me. If my daughter ends up with
ADD you can say I told you so, how's that?
[Vijay earlier:]
They live in constant fear that someone is about to march in and turn the TV off, so they watch hungrily no matter what is on (my 15 y.o. sister is like this).
Sounds like a sad existence. I don't think it's an inevitable result of restricting television, though.
Yeah! That's what happens with TV. It affects your brain waves, and it especially affects developing brains.
In theory, maybe. When you're raising kids it's interesting to think about theories, but at some point you have to look at what's actually around you.
I think some kids are more vulnerable to TV than others; by that I mean the addictive aspect of it. I haven't grilled all the parents around here about their practices regarding TV, but I can think of two unschooling families off the top of my head that I know a little bit about. Both of these kids I've known for years, and both are older teens (16-18). One mother restricted TV when her son was young; her son really likes TV now, and since he's 18 she doesn't restrict now, and he probably watches it more than she would like, but he's not a zombie and he doesn't constantly sit in front of it. For instance, he has a job.
I agree that there are some people who are more prone to addiction that others. My mother, uncle and grandmother were all alcoholics. I dodged that bullet, but it is clear to me that there is a genetic component. My husband and I both have a problem with food, one that we hope to not pass on to our daughter.
So far, letting her tell us when she's hungry, decide what she wants to
eat, and stop eating when she's full seems to be working pretty well.
She's a big girl (95% for height and 75% for weight) but not fat (well,
a little baby fat of course, she's still a baby) and I hope she never
becomes obese through eating for the wrong reasons. Just as I hope she
doesn't become a TV zombie through watching TV for the wrong reasons.
The other kid, who is 16, was never limited at all around anything including food and TV, and he spends most of his time watching TV and eating junk food, and appears to have very few interests outside of that. What do these examples prove? Nothing, really. Certainly not anything I could generalize about.
Actually, there are schools of thought that believe even books limit the imagination of a child. They would advocate oral, live storytelling.
I'm not one of those people, but they are there, and I see the difference between reading a book to a child and telling that child a story. There's certainly a difference between reading a book to a child and watching a TV show with a child.
But you're not worried about your kid not having school as a common reference point? Interesting.
Have you tried Teletubbies? I bet she'd love it. They spent millions figuring out how to pull in one-year-olds.
I agree.
Best wishes,
-Vijay
This exchange seems to have been from November 2007 (maybe). Because I can't find it, it must have been in a now-defunct forum (there are a few). —Sandra
P.S. in 2017... "Have you tried Teletubbies? I bet she'd love it. They spent millions figuring out how to pull in one-year-olds." Wait, wait, wait—"they" who spent HOW much and why!? Teletubbies was a BBC production. In April 2017, I found this line and realized it had not been challenged. A discussion arose in which someone defended the claim (not very well) and then it turned out the woman disrupting my topic was childless, and not married, but thought she should qualify to discuss it because she hopes to unschool her own children someday, she is close with her nephew, and she's a nanny. Those are not NEARLY qualifications for knowing the benefits of TV in an unschooling family. If facebook is still there, if Radical Unschooling Info is still there, the discussion might still be there, and most of it was good. |