I rarely mention it here, but my children are TV free 98% of the time and have been for the past four years. They watch no TV six days a week, it just isn't a part of their daily lives, their routine. On a Saturday, before dinner time, if we are inside the children usually settle down on the sofa together, cosy under a quilt, to watch a film. I might be sitting on the floor folding laundry from the dryer, trying to catch up on jobs around the house or pottering about in the kitchen taking care of the pre-dinner prep.
Sometimes I question whether I am doing the right thing for our children by raising them with radically reduced screen time.
I regularly feel guilt because K and L watch so little TV.
I worry that when they grow up they will ask me, 'Why didn't you let us watch more TV?' and think I have been a horrible mother because I chose to restrict their TV viewing.
They never hanker for more TV, it's not something they ask about, it's not their 'normal' day to day life. I'm pretty sure, if I let them though, they would love to watch more TV, it would make make them 'happy'. I don't know about TV making them happier then they are now, but most definitely 'happy'. That word 'happy' though, that's where the guilt kicks in.
I feel hipocritcal for making this choice for them while they are young, because when they are sleeping in the evening I watch television as a way of relaxing after a busy day. If I'm choosing a TV free life for them, shouldn't I be TV free too?As much as I would love to say: 'I don't watch TV, I have better ways of spending my time,' I don't actually think I could be. The habit is too strong for me to go completely TV free but maybe I could choose to reduce how much I watch.
In all honesty though, there isn't a lot of room in their daily rhythm to actually watch TV. My children, at ages three and six, have a really early bedtime. They have their bath at 5.30 pm and are in bed by 6 pm, Little L usually chooses to have her light off so she can settle off to sleep right away (did you notice the word 'choose'? They have the choice of reading for a while or lights straight off. Taking the battle out of bedtime really worked for Little L for a calm, relaxing bedtime rhythm.) Miss K always chooses to have her light on to either read (she loves to read) or draw at the little desk in her room, or she might potter about playing with some of her keepsakes in her room before climbing into bed.
Even after four years of the children being on their radically reduced TV journey, I don't have this whole TV thing figured out yet. I know there should probably be balance somewhere.
How and where I don't know. At what age I don't know.
There have been times when I have strongly wished the children did watch TV, if I have been going through a stage of stuggling with the children not getting along and just wanting the squabbling to stop.
But when I see my children curled up, totally absorbed and escaping into the pictures and words of a book, it's hard not to feel proud of that choice of reduced screen time. There is one thing I know, I would hate for the precious time they do have away from school life to be automatically and habitually replaced by TV. I think they need the opportunity of silence and solitude to be able to find their own inner calm, to have a chance to develop their own thoughts and feelings and be able to reach true contentment in their own being.
