Originally posted by elevatedone
Good Job.

I was amazed that when my daughter was 13 she told me that she reads a lot of books. She'll be 17 soon and still enjoys reading.

I'm buying her several for her birthday.

I'm far from a kid anymore but I love reading.. My parents started reading to me early and by the age of 2 I was reading my first books....I didn't just memorize I was actually reading......It helped me develop into a pretty decent writer as I remember in 2nd and 3rd grade going to a few " young writers" awards things or groups for kids who has pretty decent imaginations and talent..

Not saying I was super kid ( far from it ......damn ADD ) but yea I thank my parents for getting me involved early...

In highschool I was pre-occupied with " trying to fit in and be cool " but once I was out, I re-found my love for reading.....

I spend at the very least 2 hours a day reading something....most of the time about 4-6 depending on how interesting it is what I'm reading..


I think it helped too that I grew up not that wealthy so we could not afford all the cool stuff the other kids had.

I mean of course I had an atari and a NES which helped develop my awesome gaming skills, but I always had a huge imagination and still do so I never have/had trouble finding something to keep myself entertained....

A good experiment for this is when you go " up north" for the weekend with friends and nobody really watched TV. Everyone just finds out doors stuff of fun imaginative goofy shat to do and it ends up being fun instead of sitting like a zombie watching a movie....


I mean I LOVE movies and I LOVE video games, but there is much more to this world then electronic entertainment.

Try as much as you can to stimulate the other areas of your brain that use creative thinking...



To OP Great post. And no you are not a bad parent, you are a smart one and your kids hopefully will be better off for it. I think at least they will become more creative thinkers out of necessity.

Originally posted by whaaa
Nice goin AD. Are you going to take away the computer too?

It has been my experience that the www. is much more seductive and addictive than TV could ever be. I haven't watched TV in over 4 years.

[edit on 12-6-2009 by whaaa]

That is because the amount of info on the net is endless compared to what you are forced to see on TV.......

Wow,

I used to get up in the morning and put on a movie. I still do that.

Guess what I do? I go to college to study film. I'm a freelance video editor.

Sometimes, entertainment isn't as bad as you think it is. Instead, it can be inspiring in quite a positive way....

I feel sorry for your kids. But hey, whatever.

All we did was get rid of the cable TV
now all they want to do is play outside. My kids still watch movies and play video games but only for a little while if the weather is bad. It's all the stupid ADVERTISING that makes TV so bad for kids.... and Dora, can't seem to get my 2 year old away from that

We also made it a habit to have family story time before bed. Which my 6 year old will read her story to us after the 2 younger ones have heard theirs.

Edit: To add S&F

[edit on 13-6-2009 by MonoChromeWrayth]

Originally posted by AccessDenied
over a year ago I met someone who didn't own a TV....Wanna know what that person did with their time?

Aside from holding a full time job at a youth facility, this person traveled around the world, teaching English in China, surfing in Hawaii, bicycle tour of Germany, got a pilot's license for both plane and helicopter,and Road trip of the United States. This person had every sport equipment known to man....
bike, roller blades, skis, snowboard, kayak, wind sail board....you name it....
Favorite pastime though..frisbee on the beach.
YOU can't experience life in front of a box in your living room. PERIOD.

I Also know someone without a TV. Wanna know what that person did with their time?

He drank, he would drink cider, beer, vodka. Mainly cider though. The cheap kind. He would only ever leave his flat to get a bottle from the shop. I saw him many times literally crawling there because his DT's were so incapacitating.

I stopped visiting my friend who lived nearby, so I didn't see him for a couple of years but I heard last year that he had died. He was 37.

Now, he wasn't an alcoholic and kill himself through drink because he didn't have a TV. Just as the guy you are talking about wasn't a great adventurer and very motivated person because he didn't have a TV.


It does not have to be all or nothing/black and white. There is no reason that kids can't benefit from modern technology and still lead a healthy, schorlerly existence.

It seems to me to be a bit of a cop out on your behalf. As though you are to lazy to actually parent your kid and direct them as you believe is proper and instead you have just given up. It must be much easier to get them to read if they don't have a TV, than you actually structuring their time on the TV/console/PC etc, eh?

This thread me very sad. Poor kids. I hope for your sake they don't grow bitter towards them. I suppose you could always brainwash them and convince them that you have sculpted them into superthinkers (actually they are going to missing the strong imagination that their friends have and imagination is so important!)

You talk about the way kids behave nowadays and I think you are contributing to that problem. It seems like they are very much wrapped in cotton wool.

It is none of my business and I don't ask this judgmentally but why exactly do you have your kids in home schooling? How do you think that will benefit them? Do you think they will gain more our of personalised education than they will lose social experience? Do you believe that algebra, learning about oxbow lakes and Pi is more important than learning how to live with people, form friendships, deal with fallings out, learn social etiquette etc etc etc?
Because even if you were to choose a terrible school and they somehow didn't teach them as well as they would be by being home schooled, the former can be learnt at any age but being restricted from individuals and groups of their own age group, at such an importantly developmental age could and would most likely be catastrophic in the future!

Finally, I really, really hope you did all this with completely unselfish thought and with the true belief that it will benefit your kids and not because you think it makes you appear to be a good, caring mother to other people.

I'm all for the right to raise your kids as you see fit (As long as you're not Fred Phelps,) but I do have a couple questions:

1. Have you considered the possibility that your children might think they are being punished, and over the long term will grow up thinking they did something horribly wrong?

2. When it comes time to punish them for real.... what are you going to take away?

Good. Getting rid of TV and video games is a very healthy thing to do, especially for your children. Just hold tight and don't give in again later on in the future. Tv really does dumb people down; reading on the other hand, it expands your mind, it forces you to use your brain.

Originally posted by CX

There is so much rubbish on tv for kids these days, i just read this post to my little one and at first she raised her eyebrows at the prospect of no tv, then she said, "The kids programmes are pretty boring nowadays".


CX.

She said they are boring "Nowadays"?

How would she be able to speak so relatively? How can she, at 10 years old, have enough media experience to be able to differentiate quality between current kids TV and kids TV of a different age?

It appears to me that she is just echoing what she has heard from other people, most likely they are your own sentiments that you have been telling her or complaining about to other people in front of her and she has picked up on them, either because you have convinced her of the idea or she is just cleverly repeating what she knows you believe and want to hear to earn some brownie points, knowing full well you are not going to get rid of the tele-balance unit.

She probably knows very well that mum couldn't possibly go without her Corrie, Eastenders, Goldenballs, Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, Britains Got Talent, Pop Idol and Walsalls Next Supermodel.

I'm from the third world so we didn't have any of that stuff until my family moved to the US. The last and only game system I had was a super nintentdo from the early nineties. I was around 8 years old the last time I played a video game or had a system.

What has happened since?

I developed my writing skills quite a bit and am fairly well known for it in arts/poetry circles in Reno and Las Vegas, as well as a few local news presses.

I got a hell of a lot better at martial arts over the years and since I'm not working out only the thumbs I'm in very good shape.

I became active politically in my community and online through research and information dissemination. People who play lots of video games lack the patience for this sort of stuff...It just doesn't move fast or shoot something at you so it isn't important.


I still don't own a game system. The only video games in the house belong to my girlfriend. She like the Sims.

My only real electronic addiction is the work I do online and ATS. Other than that....I'm going out for coffee.

Moral of the story?

I take pride in the fact that I have grown to be a person who is knowledgeable in many subjects, and enjoys the fruits of life to the best of my ability. What you did for your kids is a favor regardless of what others might say.

[edit on 13-6-2009 by projectvxn]

Originally posted by TurkeyBurgers
So now when you see your children hanging out with their friends and the group of friends get around to talking about the latest episode of "Heroes" your kid can look like a weirdo outcast Amish family who do not own a T.V. Way to go Mom! Applause!

Come on Mom! Do not tell me you have no concept of the word "Clique"?

I was raised without TV - though my parents could have easily afforded one, they thought it was better if I learned how to entertain myself.

And sure, there were issues at school. I didn't join in the discussions of what happened on (fill in the blank) show last night...

But frankly, I wouldn't trade my upbringing for a lifetime of TV. I don't have a TV now, and I do not miss it. I am VERY glad my parents chose to raise me without the "idiot box."

Good move! I had my family stop watching t.v. over a month ago and I thought the same as you, that they would just be tortured by it, but they never even cared! We spent a couple hours a day gazing at that box, I noticed I would have to yell my kids names about 3 times to break their concentration from it. I realized 1 day that the degree of brainwashing from that thing was severe, and cut it off! Break down the word "Enter-tain-ment" You know what ENTER means, TAIN mean hold forcefully, as in , conTAIN, obTAIN, reTAIN, deTAIN, and MENT is short for mental. Entertainment is anything that enters and holds your mental. The shows on t.v. are called "programs" who is being programmed? Not my kids.

i think what you did was awesome! now, if i could only stop staring at my computer.... lol!