Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Turn off the TV Week

Well, Turn off the TV week was officially last week.  We missed it, again.  This year though, we were given a do over.  My daughter's teacher also missed it last week and decided to do her own Turn off the TV Week this week.  The children in her class who "survive" the week will be able to go to a party next week.  As it turns out, my daughter is all about parties and fun.  So, this little motivation is all she needed to be a willing participant.  

The kids were given a log to fill in daily of how they feel when not watching T.V. and what they did instead of T.V.   We fill it out nightly, so far with success.  Hannah has read, done paint by numbers, played with friends and gone to the park.  She has not complained at all, keeping her eyes on the prize.  

We have had a bump in road though.  I decided that we should all participate in this experiment.  It seemed like a great opportunity to spend more time together and save money on electricity (my frugal ways are always in the back of my mind).  Two things happened that made it very difficult to follow through on this as a family.  One, my youngest daughter got sick. She was home from school for 2 days.  Yesterday, she was miserable and did not want to do a thing.  She was dizzy with a fever, sick to her stomach and tired.  I tried to keep the T.V. off, but caved by 11:00 am.  Board games and crafts were the last thing she wanted to do.  She did watch PBS, I think that is an acceptable alternative to Disney and Nick?   The second bump in the road was in fact my own weakness.  Let me start out by saying that as a general rule, I do not watch reality T.V.  But, I have a weakness that I cannot help.  I love The Real Housewives of New York City.  It was on Tuesday night, and it was a big, can't miss episode.  I really had no choice, I had to watch it before I heard about it from my fellow RHofNYC junkies.  My children knew I watched it, and gave me their blessing.  I can't believe it and know that I will pay for that soon.

As I write this though, we have been T.V free this evening and anticipate that we will keep the T.V. off for the remainder of the week.  My son has complained a little bit.  Which makes no sense because he doesn't like anything that is on anyway.  I think he just doesn't like that T.V. is not an option for him when he is done with his school work, instruments, soccer practice or playing with friends.  I wish I could say that someday we will be T.V. free.  But, I know that is an unrealistic goal.  As it is, we don't watch a lot of T.V.  I like Thursday night on NBC and The Real Housewives, which ends next week.  Otherwise, we watch very little.  So, I think that we are okay in this area of our lives.

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