Homeschooling and TV

[mommyofshmoo]

Just wondering how homeschooling and TV interact. Do your kids watch? How much? Etc. I know this is covered elsewhere on MDC, but I wanted to get a feel in the HS community.

[annettemarie]

None- we don't do TV.

[USAmma]

TV has been a great learning tool for Abi from the toddler years. I allow selected videos/DVD's for her. I own many Sesame Street/Blues Clues type that I found at thrift stores. Right now her favorite is Milo and Otis. She also loves to watch PBS nature shows and science discovery shows.

Now, I don't let her watch it a lot. We are busy and have it off most of the time. The junk shows are few and far between but I do allow one here and there.

I would say .5- 1.5 hours of TV a day depending on the day, and it's not like she's sitting there watching it. She is playing near the TV or walking in and out of the room. She will stop for her favorite parts. In the evenings we will sometimes (once a week maybe) watch a PBS show together and she will sit so we can talk about it as its happening. 4 year olds have lots of questions. :LOL

[Queen Gwen]

We don't do much TV at all, maybe a movie or 2 per week. We're too busy with other stuff, and I have no clue when any of the kid-type shows are on.

[UnschoolnMa]

We have unlimited TV here. The only requirements that are attached to it are really respect kinds of things that we all agree on like remembering that others may want to watch something too, and not watching something in the living room that scares the pants off of someone else etc.

My kids are free to watch whatever they want to. We each have shows we like individually. Ds likes anime, action movies, and video/tech review shows. Dd likes anything with sharks on it, cartooons, and some movies like Mean Girls etc. I like crime/forensic type shows like CSI and Cold Case, and Dh likes history shows or old movies like westerns and such. We also watch things like Family Guy, Simpsons, Adult Swim, Saturday Night Live, etc. often together.

[SagMom]

We watch tv. The amount varies, depending on what else is going on, what the weather is, if anyone is sick, etc. Lately, there's a cartoon, or science or animal program on on the a.m. and then it's off until evening...after 8:00--when either a sit-com or home improvement show is on. We don't limit tv time, this is just the current way it's going.

[RedWine]

No TV whatsoever for right now. We'll revisit the issue when my youngest is older (5 or so). Though we won't ever allow more than an hour a day, if that.

[moominmamma]

We have unrestricted TV viewing here, except that you must have decided in advance of turning the TV on what you are going to watch. No channel surfing until something catches your eye.

The TV rarely gets turned on. Maybe one DVD a week, sometimes an hour or so of TV in the course of a week.

Miranda

[clairegrace]

We are pretty liberal TV watchers - but mostly channels like Food Network (my girls love Rachel Ray & Emeril), History, Discovery, Biography, etc.

We also rent movies from the library about topics we are studying. We are doing Ancient civilizations this year, and since we won't be going to China anytime soon, we watch travel videos about the country.

My kids aren't really into the cartoons or anything and there are days we go without even turning it on. Sometimes we are so busy with karate, going to the park, or on field trips we don't bother. Then again, when the weather is bad, or the teacher is sick, we have been known to watch an entire season of Gilmore Girls or StarGate SG-1.

Cara

[GranolaMoon]

Mine each get to pick one show in the morning, then it goes off til afternoon at least. Often by then they're so busy playing they forget. If we have schoolish sorta stuff planned for that day then it hasta stay off (after the morning watch) til that's done, again, they usually forget.

[dharmamama]

Just within the last three months have we allowed any tv at all. My kids are 39 and 27 months. I'd say they watch an average of 30 minutes per week. It's all videos or things we have taped from PBS. Last week they watched a 15-minute segment of Reading Rainbow that was Stellaluna (my dad taped it for them). This week they have watched two 20-minutes episodes of The Muppets on DVD (Elton John and Julie Andrews).

For the most part I think children's programming is worthless and is basically one big advertisement. I try to let them watch only things that don't have product tie-ins or don't have many product tie-ins. They have watched LeapFrog Letter Factory and Richard Scarry's The Best ABC Video Ever. They have also watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which dh taped for them, but the Abominable scared my dd so we turned it off.

Other than those things, I don't think they have seen anything else. Oh, last time we were at my in-laws', my FIL showed them a video about badgers.

When my kids get to be 5 or 6, then I will start letting them watch National Geo videos and stuff. I don't think they are really old enough to benefit from it right now.

Namaste!

[oldcrunchymom]

We have unlimited TV here too.

[mommyofshmoo]

I am intrigued by all the posts that say you have unlimited TV yet your kids don't watch much. My dd would watch WAY TOO MUCH if I let her.

Her long attention span is both a blessing and a curse!

The thing is- I'm trying to create an environment for learning at the house where she can choose activities at will- but if she just wants to watch Dora all day, she won't do other stuff.

I'm not sure now to allow unstructured learning time without heavily restricting TV.

[saphire]

Mommyofshmoo- I hear you! My dd's are 3 and almost 6. We have cable tv for the first time, and so now that something entertaining is always on, I have to turn the tv off so they will stop watching. Once its off, they will go play, but they won't turn it off themselves.
In Jan and Feb we had no tv, it was in storage, and the girls played really well together and didn't get bored. Then dh and I missed being able to watch movies together on weekends, and the tv made its reappearance. I am trying to get the motivation up to cancel the cable, and this thread has been the motivation I needed. The commercials and ideals the tv present are not things I want to shape my kids. They will watch some tv, just not much. I could live with an hour a day. I'd like none at all, but I feel like I should consider their desires too.
Do you think there is a chance kids grow out of watching tv? I remember at ages 9 and 10 not watching tv at all- it cut into my reading time :LOL

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by mommyofshmoo

I am intrigued by all the posts that say you have unlimited TV yet your kids don't watch much.

In our family we treat TV viewing habits (and the general issue of screen time) as "mental hygeine" issues, to be discussed and trouble-shot regularly at family meetings. At our weekly family meetings we discuss anything that's come up in the course of the week, but we also have a 'standing agenda' of things we touch on every week: sleep, nutrition, exercise, housework and screen time. They're all aspects of physical, intellectual and emotional health that we keep tabs on. We talk about how things are balancing out and, if we agree the balance is not quite right, we discuss little adjustments that might help.

So my kids have always got the message that too much TV viewing is not a good thing, and that they are in charge (with my help) of defining their limits and finding ways of striking a balance. I've let them over-run limits that I'd consider acceptable without judgement. We just discuss "how they've been doing with TV" at the next meeting and invariably they resolve to change things in some way.

We didn't start the formal Family Meeting thing until the kids were older, but my approach was the same when they were younger: to make it clear to them that I felt that with the right information and support they could make good decisions for themselves about TV-watching.

Miranda

[Claudette]

We have unlimited tv, within limits, hehehehe!

That is, there children are allowed access to the tv, and dvd player (we only have one tv in the house), but don't get to watch whatever they like, and if we feel their tv viewing is becoming excessive, or that they're not using their bodies as much as they need to to release energy stores (which usually shows up in their tempers and interactions) we say, "Tv off, let's do something else, let's go outside and get some fresh air, or help mum/dad cook, or do something else"... Some days there is a lot of tv viewing (if the kids aren't well, or it's miserable weather outside) and some weeks there's hardly any at all...

More than anything though, we're concerned with content. So, nothing that is violent, or encourages certain kinds of behaviours, and pretty much we let our instincts dictate for us. Also, we always know what our kids are watching (the house is pretty small, and the tv is centrally located which helps) and we take notice of how our children interact with the shows - we always watch new dvds with them and take notice of their reactions, even to "safe" kiddy shows and movies...

[UnschoolnMa]

Originally Posted by Claudette

We have unlimited tv, within limits, hehehehe!

That is, there children are allowed access to the tv, and dvd player (we only have one tv in the house), but don't get to watch whatever they like, and if we feel their tv viewing is becoming excessive, or that they're not using their bodies as much as they need to to release energy stores (which usually shows up in their tempers and interactions) we say, "Tv off, let's do something else, let's go outside and get some fresh air, or help mum/dad cook, or do something else"...... More than anything though, we're concerned with content. So, nothing that is violent, or encourages certain kinds of behaviours,

I don't mean to pick, but I am really interested in how we are defining "unlimited" for the purposes of this discussion. I hear unlimited and think "without limits" but here you are describing several limitations. (I do realize you said you had "unlimited within limits"...so maybe I didn't understand really?)

When I say unlimited TV I mean there are no limits that we can think of other than things like wanting to watch a channel we don't get, or the like. Respect issues come into play, but those are just a part of all that we do here anyway about pretty much anything. If I think the TV has been on a long time I might comment on it, or I might not. And even if I comment on it they don't have to turn it off to go play. So anyway... just curious what limitations mean persay here?

[Crunchier]

We only have the basic channels, so we can avoid a lot of the tv problems that come when there is always something to watch. I'm not a big tv person, Derek will watch the channel guide to see what's on the channels we don't have and whine that he's "missing it". :

I have morning classes, Derek has afternoon. In the morning Ben usually watches PBS from the time he wakes up till I get home. Derek says that he's trying to cut it down and only uses it when he "needs" it. I flip it off when I walk in, if it's on, and don't turn it back on till 5pm when we all sit down and watch the Simpsons together. It generally does stay on the rest of the evening, excexpt for dinner time, which is sacred. When I get home, I get lunch, do household chores and get the heck out of the house till dinner time. I take Ben with me of course.

I despise commercial children's programming. Ben watches our adult animation (not porn, Family Guy, Willy Wonka, selected Southpark episodes, Finding Nemo, and some Rugrats videos I had before we were married), music videos, or a monster truck dvd that he adores if we have a TV watching day(because it's raining, the car's broken, he's sick, I have to study, etc).

[Claudette]

I don't mean to pick, but I am really interested in how we are defining "unlimited" for the purposes of this discussion. I hear unlimited and think "without limits" but here you are describing several limitations.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse... I was talking tongue in cheek - a bit of Aussie humour there...

Obviously, my kids don't have unlimited access to tv (unlimited meaning anytime they want, to watch anything they want) because I believe tv is, while common in our society today, a very unnatural passtime for children (all that sitting still and not using their bodies - considering that a toddler can expend the same amount of energy in two hours as an adult can in a whole week, I don't believe children as young at 6 and 4 gain that much from sitting staring at a box in the corner of the room, and the nature of tv is to suck people into watching it, so I don't believe that natural self-limiting behaviours work well in regards to tv and computers...)...

Of course, down here, we have 5 channels, no cable (you can get cable but it's a luxury not a common household item)...

We're what might be called radical unschoolers in this house, and yet we don't encourage box watching of any sort, though we also have chucked the box out, or put strict restrictions on it... I feel (and this is quite personal) that tv and computer, while a useful tool, can never offer anything near the full sensory experience of real life. Even though tv can offer a glimpse into other cultures and the lives of animals native to other countries, because the experience is really only 2D it will never have the same impact of actually getting out there and doing stuff for yourself, even if it only means seeing local fauna up close and personal and foreign fauna in zoo and sanctuaries...

So, yeah, I was talking tongue in cheek...

[UnschoolnMa]

Originally Posted by Claudette

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse... I was talking tongue in cheek - a bit of Aussie humour there...

Oh it's no problem. I totally understand now Thanks for responding!