Help! My Child Watches Too Much TV.

Television is a fact of life, and there are few families that don't have one, or that never watch one. Television can also be educational, informative, and uplifting. But, let's face it - the vast majority of what is shown on TV is pure drivel - it is far from uplifting or educational, and often portrays behavior that would be quite unacceptable in most social circles. Even worse, it often portrays that behavior as normal, or even desirable.

Another consequence of excessive TV viewing is that it consumes quality time that would otherwise be spent in physical activity or social interaction. Watching television makes lazy viewers of active doers. Instead of playing games in the playgrounds, children become passive spectators. It adversely affects healthy social behavior and turns active children into obese ‘couch potatoes’.

Television certainly influences behaviors. If it didn't, advertisers wouldn't spend so many billions of dollars on their tiny, 30-second slices of it.

So, short of throwing the TV out of the window, how can you limit your child's exposure to it to reasonable amounts? Here are some suggestions:

1. Start with your own behavior. If you spend 4 hours a day watching soaps and sitcoms is it any surprise that your child does too? The biggest challenge for a parent is to be a good role model. It is not what you say, it is what you do that will most influence your kids!

2. Next, you will have to find alternatives for TV, both for yourself, and for your children. Think of healthy social activities that will improve your physical health and help you in social interactions. The best ones include taking up some sports or hobbies. Choose the sport you like and introduce your child to it. Or revive your interest in an old hobby. You may just want to relax reading a good novel, or even a comic while listening to your favorite music. But, initially you will have to put in extra effort to make it work.

Your local recreation center or the adult education center will have many programs and classes to offer at any time of the year. You can make a deal with your child that if he attends one of his favorite activities, you will offer some incentive.

3. Establish some baseline rules - eg. No TV before school, or after X pm, or during meals. Or maybe have a regular TV-free day: no TV on Tuesdays, for example.

4. Pre-schedule television - ie. People can only watch what has been pre-booked. This cuts out aimless channel surfing. Instead the family will have to look up the TV guide and find something that is actually worth watching.

5. Use television time as a reward for other activities, such as completing household chores, or getting homework done. You will need to draw up some sort of chart to keep track of all this!

6. The best way to monitor your child’s television watching is to watch together and then talk about what you viewed. Initiate discussion on the program or its values, its quality of acting and scripting. You can even discuss the commercials that will help your children to be less naive and gullible when it comes to advertising. Take practical examples and show them how some of the toys and foods don’t live up to the hype when you actually go and buy them.

7. Don’t turn off the television abruptly. Give sufficient warning, and try to time it with the end of the show.

8. Cancel your expensive cable and satelite subscriptions and use the extra money either for other activities or else to rent movies. This discourages aimless channel surfing and, instead, encourages you, as a family, to go out, choose a movie, and watch it together - without ads! Combine this with a home-cooked pizza or nachos and you have the makings of a special family night instead of the usual couch potato routine.

As with all things, moderation is usually the key. Be selective. Find the good programs and watch them. The rest of the time, do something more active or more sociable. Within a month or two you will wonder how you (and your kids) ever found the time to watch so much of it.

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Dr. Noel Swanson offers free expert parenting tips on his website - just sign up for his newsletter and get a free chapter of his book, The GOOD CHILD Guide. Why not discuss parenting issues with other parents on a parenting forum?
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