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Catch You Later, Cookie Monster
Finding Alternative Activities When the TV Is Turned Off
By Beth Hering
About 14 years ago, Kim Moldofsky of Chicago, Ill., and her husband moved into a basement apartment that was not cable-ready. By the time they were settled in and ready to call the cable company, they discovered that their lives were quite nice without TV and that they had been spending more time together. And while nowadays they do use their TV set for watching DVDs, their household has remained television-free – even with the addition of two sons.
While not every family that spends some time without television will decide to turn the set off permanently, such an experiment can be interesting. A perfect chance to find out firsthand how life without television might affect your family is by participating in Turnoff TV Week, which this year runs April 21-27.
Television is such a routine part of life for so many of us that it may seem strange at first to want to give it up, even for just a week. But groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics are in favor of trying. The AAP recommends that children under 2 years of age watch no television or other screen media and that children older than 2 limit exposure to one to two hours per day. This advice contrasts greatly with the fact that one out of every four toddlers has a TV set in his bedroom.
Pediatrician and author Dr. Jennifer Shu notes that there are many good reasons to keep TV viewing down among children. "Although adults may find watching TV before bedtime to be relaxing, this is actually stimulating for children and can cause sleep disturbances, so a good step would be to get the TV out of the bedroom," she says. "In addition, TV can lead to unwanted weight gain, possible attention and hyperactivity problems and exposure to commercials for foods, drinks and snacks that are often high in sugar and fat."
Moldofsky likes that her children have had less exposure to violence and commercialism by living in a TV-free house and says that "not watching TV during the holiday shopping season reduces the 'holiday gimmies.'"