A Total Turnoff

Presenting...more guest-posty goodness. Enjoy! And show her some love!


A few weeks ago, I stuck our TV in a closet. I didn't know about TV Turnoff Week and I wasn’t implementing some grand media plan. My sons, Rocketboy and Hurricanehead, are 8 and 3, watch only PBS or parent-approved videos, and max out around ten hours per week. They weren’t addicted – yet – and they weren't watching crud. I was just sick of the nagging for more, more, more viewing time. I needed a break from my boys' relentless limit-testing.

Rocketboy was shocked and angry at first. Then he went outside to play. Within a day, the boys quit asking when I would put the set back and went on with other things. Things like massive, tempera-paint intensive art projects using stacks of paper and all the cups in the kitchen. Like wandering into the house completely covered in fresh mud. Like pulling the sheets off all the beds to make forts. Trying to cook their own meals. Weeding snap-pea seedlings out of the vegetable garden. They came up with plenty to keep themselves occupied.

At first I was thrilled to see so much activity, despite the extra chaos. I thought I was nipping tube-addiction in the bud. But after a week and a half, I was exhausted. We're "relaxed homeschoolers" so I spend a lot of time around my kids, but somehow I'd always found time in the afternoon to write, clean up, and hear myself think. Now I spent the afternoon dealing with one mess after another. What happened? Oh yeah. That used to be the boys' TV time.

Oh, the shame of realizing that I was the one who needed the television. I'd been letting Buster and Arthur babysit my kids. Maybe a mother's helper would be the way to go instead – a real person instead of a flickering box. Then I thought about the last babysitter we had. She would come over, cook dinner, and – for eight or ten bucks an hour – watch movies with them. The TV is already paid for, it won't show up late or need a ride home, and it'll never elope the day before my anniversary getaway.

I put the TV back in the living room. When the boys realized what I was up to, they cheered me on. Rocketboy talked me through reconnecting the DVD player to the set, something I’d never done before. I turned it on. They commenced viewing. I got to sit in another room and think. Sweet.

In the end, the boys still watch about as much TV as they did before the great set-yanking experiment. They get to indulge, I get to write, and earning TV time is still a great motivator for cooperative behavior. They did quit nagging to watch extra shows. In that respect, the experiment was a resounding success, although it's anybody’s guess as to when the wheedling will resume.

Would I yank the TV again? Of course, but only if the irritation of the kids' whining for more TV exceeds the benefit of having a couple of hours to myself each day. If that's not the case, Maya and Miguel are more than welcome in my living room.

KCB raises organic vegetables, oversees her children’s free-range learning, and blogs at Redneck Mother.