Turning off the TV

In late July, Jim and I decided to make August our family "TV-free month." Since we don't get any channels, this just meant no movie-watching for the month. We bent the rule once, just for our anniversary, because Jim wanted to watch a movie after the kiddos went to bed. But the kids haven't watched anything all month long.

We found it to be a really refreshing month, overall. Of course, there were a few times I was ready to pull my hair out--who knew that August would be such a rainy month??--and wished I could plop the kids in front of Andy Griffith for a while just to give me some peace and quiet! But they did pretty well and even pretty much stopped begging to watch stuff, after the first week or two.

I love how going without TV made the kids want to read (or be read to) more, and they also played outside a lot (when it wasn't raining, that is!). They also got more creative, inventing fun little games for themselves, playing with Play-Doh and Legos, etc. Oh, they had their lest-than-angelic moments, but they mostly did well. :) I highly recommend trying this, if you've never done it. There is even a 30-day challenge here, with some free downloadable ideas for family activities you can do while keeping the TV turned off.

We plan to put pretty strict limits on the TV from here on out. We used to do really well, but I'd been letting them watch more than I should for a while, so I think this month was as important for me as it was for them!