Well, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I expected. Of course, I’m referring to going without television for a week.
The day before we planned to begin going without television, I simply explained to my children that we weren’t going to watch shows for a week. I told them we’d find other things to do. That answer seemed to be enough for them. I just wasn’t sure it would be enough for me. I’d sort of grown used to my kiddos watching a video while I made dinner.
As the week went by, it wasn’t too hard to help my kids come up with something to do while I cooked. They did things like work on chores, paint, color, and of course, help me cook.
The other time of day I wasn’t sure we could manage without the television was mornings. At least one my kiddos gets up quite early in the morning. We’d gotten in the habit of turning on the television before breakfast. As my other two children woke up, they’d join in watching a show. More often than I’d like to admit, the television only got turned off while we ate breakfast. After that, we’d turn it back on until it was time to leave the house for preschool or errands. The days when we didn’t need to leave the house, I’d sometimes let the kids watch a movie while I got a few things done around the house. Before I knew it, it was lunch time and the television had been on all morning. (Of course, this didn’t necessarily mean they actually watched it that entire time, but still!)
The first morning without television, my children begged for an early breakfast because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. By day three, they’d caught on and were playing quietly before breakfast. (It wasn’t quite as quaint as it sounds.) By the end of the week, they sometimes didn’t even come downstairs until quite a while after they’d played in their rooms together.
As it turns out, for us, a week was enough time to change our habits. Now, does that mean we still aren’t watching television? Absolutely not. However, we’re being a bit more intentional as to when we watch a show. Ideally, I’m only having my children watch a video while I make dinner. Honestly, by then, I don’t have much patience left to allow the five and under crowd help me with dinner. However, on the days the weather is nice; it’s just as easy to let my children play outside.
Of course, there are days like yesterday when my kids watched multiple movies. Two of the three weren’t feeling well and I was working on painting my son’s room. Sure, I could have spread out puzzles or Play-doh, however, why do you think I waited until this week to tackle a painting project?
Seriously, it was a good week for us. My kids, who already regularly play together, found reasons to play together even more. I interacted with my children more than usual and stretched my patience and creativity. It was a good week.