TV-Turnoff Week…What a Waste
My daughter’s school is participating in (actually, coercing and bribing students to participate in) TV-Turnoff Week April 19-25, 2004. The idea is that the student, and (I assume by extension) the family watches no television for that entire week. To quote from the material the school sent home, “this event is important to curb excess TV-watching.” This also includes computer/video games, too.
Ok, kids, shall we start running through how really daffy the idea of a one-week break is?
The idea seems to be that, by not watching television for one week, your child will lower his or her average television viewing. Although stastically true, it is, of course, a crock that one week will change a child’s television-watching habits. If you allow your child to watch television unrestricted the other fifty-one weeks out of the year, trust me, this one week ain’t gonna’ make a dime’s worth of difference to your couch-potato.
On the other hand, if, like my daughter, television watching is strictly controlled all the time, then not watching for this one week is just plain silly.
Katie usually watches Sesame Street, and rarely is permitted to watch one of her Warner Brothers VCDs (I purchased a bunch from Maylasia years ago). She is also permitted occasionally to watch the discs of “Between the Lions” I make for her by having a computer set up to record them each day - she is becoming more involved with this show the more her reading skills improve. Over the weekends, she usually gets in a “Fairly Odd-Parents” or two for relaxation with no socially-acceptable redeeming qualities (her father laughs out loud at Wanda, Cosmo, and Timmy, too)…and that’s pretty much it. We spend more time each day reading books with her than we do allowing her to watch television.
But then, we made considerable financial sacrifices to make certain that one parent would be at home with her instead of having her raised by a child-care facility, and we don’t plan on changing that anytime soon. We also decided she will not have a television in her room…not now, not later. So we can comfortably control the amount and the quality of the television she watches, since she must have permission to watch, and must watch in an area where there is at least one parent. Not just one week a year, but every day.
One of the things that frustrates me about these do-gooder “event weeks” is that they swing to the extreme that whatever the event is to stop is an “evil thing.” Television is not evil by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly some of the programming on it is insipid (can you say “The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour?”) and should be banished to keeping chimps occupied, but saying that because of the worst shows television itself is evil is just plain silly.
We are careful in what television Katie sees…and that includes our viewing, which routinely needs to be severely adjusted or curtailed. She never sees my current favorite show, 24, because…well, heavens, this is about as far away from “age-appropriate” as it gets. If that means I don’t get to see it until Friday night at 11:00pm, so be it. But she does sometimes get exposed to Nova an hour earlier, when we sit down together to watch; we’re available to answer her questions in real-time while she cuddles up with us and watches the program. I would certainly not allow her to see Cold Case (probably one of the most depressing programs on television today - there are rarely any redeeming characters or qualities to the wrist-gnawing stories this series tells, and it truly amazes me that CBS can get away with running something this dark at 8:00pm on a Sunday night…Jessica Fletcher, we miss you!), but she is exposed to 60 Minutes an hour earlier. She rarely pays much attention, except when Andy Rooney is on (she thinks he’s funny).
She has her own computer (a Macintosh 9500 given to me years ago by a client who passed away long before his time), and her own computer “games”…all of them educational. She must ask to play any of them, and she is frequently told, “No, not today, you just played them yesterday.” Again, the idea seems to be that all computer games are evil…but having seen the strides she’s made in mathematics by playing Reader Rabbit Math, or the increase in her reading skills from the Jump Start discs, and even when she was younger playing along with Steve and Blue learning how to associate groups of like things while not even realizing she was learning…I mean, I certainly wouldn’t let her play Doom for pete’s sake, but c’mon.
Katie is better-off for the television viewing and game-playing she does, not worse-off. And I know it sounds like I’m “tooting our own horn” here, but honest, imposing limits on a child’s viewing/playing is just simple common sense - that all parents don’t do this is the amazing part, not that we do. Don’t blame me because some parents use television as a one-eyed baby-sitter.
And just so you know, as I type this, Katie is sitting alone on the couch reading a recently-acquired library book. She did not ask today to watch television, and she didn’t ask today to play a computer game. She knows she never needs to ask permission to read her books, though…
So nope, we won’t be participating in this goofy “turn off the tube for one week so we can feel good about ourselves” nonsense. We will spend this week doing the same thing we do every week…controlling the amount and quality of her television viewing and video game play. And she will spend the week learning new things, and be a better and wiser person for it.
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April 19th, 2004 at 7:44 pm
Where there are some good things on tv, most of it is worthless, IMO. What tv does well are documentary and history (two things I’m interested in) but as for sit-com’s and drama’s, they are cookie cutters. Have a hit and soon every network has a copy of it. As for my viewing I don’t watch more than three or four hours a week, aside from local/network news from 6-7. Frankly, I would much rather listen to otr than stare at some screen.
April 24th, 2004 at 8:24 pm
I’m not really sure why you pinged my website with this post. You basically just pat yourself on the back a bunch for making sure your bright little kid doesn’t learn how to deal with free will.
As a 24 year old, I can offer this observation. About half of the kids I know who grew up with parents as strict as you seem went nuts as soon as they moved out. By never learning how to have self-discipline, they weren’t prepared for the lifestyles they were exposed to in college. Your daughter might grow up to be really unique and talented. She also might grow up to be boring, incompatible with her peers and resentful. I would be much more impressed if your daughter chose not to watch TV because you taught her to have a greater interest in art, music, writing, or something productive, than if she only watches as much TV as her ‘enforcers’ allow.
As for TV Turnoff Week: I never interpreted it as saying that TV is fundamentally evil. Do you feel like your Jewish friends are telling you that bread is evil when they observe Passover? It’s really just a way for people to become more self aware about their individual TV habits. I see nothing wrong with that. You seem like a real jerk dismissing the event as nonsense when it’s goals are essentially the same as yours. Step down off your high and mighty pedestal.
He, he…so tell me - how you really feel?
Seems difficult to discuss something like this intelligently when religion is irrationally shoehorned into it - indeed, you demonstrate clearly one of the problems with “Anti-Weeks” like this one, the fervor with which proponents hold on desperately to their “beliefs” without considering alternatives. And I certainly won’t get into an argument about whether setting reasonable and age-appropriate limits for children is the proper thing to do, since that has nothing whatsoever to do with “TV-Turnoff Week.”
April 24th, 2004 at 9:32 pm
When I received your trackback, much like Scott I was curious to see why you were against the idea of a TV Turnoff week.
I was glad to discover that you are not against turning off the TV per se, but against the institutionalizing of such an idea. Comments I received on my blog echoed your experience - namely, those who have already tamed the ‘TV tiger’ see this event as pointless. Conversely, those who haven’t exercised such diligence previously, recognize that participating for the short (achievable) duration of one week, may either
a) give cause to investigate other and better ways to spend their time, or
b) present the opportunity to discover or attain a self-discipline with regards to TV time that had been hitherto unknown.
April 24th, 2004 at 9:39 pm
Meta: I posted that comment because I was interested in having a discussion. Instead you subtly attacked my intelligence, showed your agism and hid behind a straw man. I chose Passover as an example almost at random, because it happened it happened just a few weeks ago. I didn’t intend to set off any blinking lights. /Meta
TV Turnoff Week lasts one week of the year. That week the campaign encourages people not to watch TV for only that short period. The other 51 weeks of the year, you are free practice/consider the “alternative” to TV Turnoff (which I guess is turning on TV).
April 29th, 2004 at 8:05 pm
After reading this blog, I come away with the feeling that you are very involved with your child’s life. And that is a good thing.
I do think you should be a little more forgiving of your child’s school. While I do believe “TV Turn-off Week” is more for adults, there is value for anyone to keep the TV off for a week. You see, you are a minority in the way you raise your child. I think most parents don’t get as involved as you do. The rise in violent video games and sexually graphic movies is a testament to that.
So, will this week make kids across the country stop watching TV forever? Maybe, maybe not. But, there is a good chance that this week without TV will make people realize there are other things to do besides watching TV. It might not make them stop watching, but I think there is a possibility it will lower the amount of time spent watching. Especially in older people who can be more conscious of the amount of time that was spent watching TV.
I don’t think these awareness days are meant to stop something that is “evil”, it is more to bring awareness to the issue. “National Breast Cancer Awareness Week” isn’t meant to stop breast cancer. But rather to make people aware of the disease, and the complications from it. So TV Turn-off week is meant to make people realize how much they watch, and the things they are missing by watching a lot of it.
I understand you deeply care about what your child does, and like I’ve said, that is a good thing. But just as you have strong feelings against TV Turn-off Week, I think you need to be aware, and acknowledge, that there are positives to having a week dedicated to no TV.
Again, to acknowledge that a week without television is a “good thing” implies that a week with television is a “bad thing.” It is that premise with which I disagree. –cfs3
May 1st, 2004 at 10:44 pm
Interesting set of responses. I guess we live on the far edge. We don’t watch TV at all. I used to say that we didn’t have TV, but we actually do have the device, and watch an occasional DVD, (3 – 4 a month) but no actual television.
We have raised 3 kids in a TV free household, (with the exception of the occasional movie), and they are now 21, 19 and 17 and are all fairly well adjusted young adults. It was important to us to have someone home as much as possible with the kids, and to provide things to do so that they wouldn’t be bored. Somehow they managed to keep themselves busy and entertained without the box.
We did have computers when they were teens, but the time and Internet time were limited to a couple of hours a day, increased as they got older, and adjusted by grades, personality and chores around the house. Our 17 year old is using his last 2 years of High School to obtain his Associates Degree at our community college. He should graduate from HS with a diploma and a degree.
We all spend a considerable amount of time reading, and the kids have repeatedly sought out and discovered excellent programs within the public school system to keep them challenged and excited about learning.
We now have 2 younger kids, 1 and 6. They have not yet had the pleasure of television or movies. They don’t seem to be overly bored. Their mother is with them, and keeps a small home business running, and the kids don’t seem to be any more bored than other kids I have come across.
With that said, I disagree with your assessment of “Turn off your TV” week. While most people that participate will get nothing out of it, other than the knowledge that they have the discipline to avoid something for a week, a small number of people that participate will find alternatives, and perhaps continue to take advantage of them after the week is over. If a few people every year find other things to do, and stick with them, then it’s worth the promotion. If you don’t like the idea of one week a year don’t participate. If you don’t like your kids learning to do something for a week and then dropping it, that’s more of an issue between you and your kids.
I have had lots of comments about our TV free household. People laugh, tell me that I really sneak out and watch TV when no one is looking, tell me how much I’m missing, ask me how I can live without ________ (fill in the blank), and the scariest part; ask me how I can live with small children in the house without Disney videos? It’s not that hard. We read books, make up stories to tell the kids, listen to music, play cards, build forts, and let our kids have time to just play.
The one thing I’ve learned is that what other people do is what they do. I don’t get excited or upset about what other people are doing. I do feel sorry for people who use the TV as a baby sitter. They are missing out on their kids, and their kids are just plain missing out. But then, that’s just my opinion.