How to Regulate Your Child’s TV Watching

Television is a fact of life that cannot be wished away. These days, you cannot think of a home without a television, and it is rare to find families that don't watch television. Television is no longer considered a means of entertainment only; indeed, it can be informative, educational and uplifting. Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that most of what is shown on TV is pure nonsense, if not cheap and obscene. As parents, your concern about what your child watches is justified because most of the time it portrays behavior that is quite unacceptable in most social circles, and presents it as normal, or even desirable behavior.

Besides the garbage that is fed into your child, television eats into the time your child would have otherwise spent in physical activity or in meaningful conversation. Watching television has turned normal healthy individuals into ‘couch potatoes’ since it is a largely passive and solitary activity that is detrimental to healthy social behavior.

That television influences behaviors is evident from the billions of dollars spent on advertisements. It is the sheer repetition of it that works on the minds of people and comes to surface at the time of making choices.

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. The best place to start is from here and the best person to start with is you. Take a fresh look at how much time you are spending in front of the television screen. If you spend 4 hours a day watching soaps, you can’t blame your child for watching too much TV. As a parent, you are required to make some personal sacrifices only to set the right example for your children. Remember, children learn by examples not by sermons.

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. You may even think of cutting down on your channel subscriptions. This way you will watch only what has been pre-booked. You save time on aimless channel surfing, and the family can jointly decide the programs that are 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 method of getting rid of all TV woes is to watch television together - and then initiate discussion on what you have viewed. This will help your child to evaluate the program and learn something from it. If you discuss the commercials, it will help your children to be less naive and gullible. As a family, you can figure out what tricks the advertisers play to make you want to buy their product. You know that most of the toys and foods don’t live up to the hype created around them.

7. Be fair when it comes time to turn off the television. Give some reasonable 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.

Article Source: http://publisherscloninghouse.com

Why not visit Dr. Noel Swanson's website and get hold of his excellent book The GOOD CHILD Guide, as well as more free articles about child behavior problems? For parenting tips visit here.
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