Idiot Box

I was just reading an article on crosswalk on de-stressing the home school house. I came across a few things that were interesting, and I couldn't pass this part up...

By limiting or eliminating your TV time, your home life finds more stress-free hours in the day. Because your child is not subject to ads (which exist solely to tell you that you are not content with what you have), you have less-stress shopping. Your children are also more receptive of others' gifts to them. As Urie Bronfenbrenner, a professor at Cornell University puts it:The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents. ... Turning on the television set can turn off the process that transforms children into adults.

I have been fantasizing about putting the television out to the curb nearly our entire marriage, but the idea causes Todd to break out in hives (slight exaggeration - he has once or twice intentionally gone a week without tv, and didn't kill him, but it did hurt him). Now, he will be quick to point out that I spend my share of time worshiping at the shinny black idol in the living room, and he is right. That is why I would just assume not have it in my house. The only thing I would really miss is NY Giants football (did you see that they finally won yesterday?)

Any hope I had of becoming one of those crazy one income homeschool fundamentalist families without a television died last February when the above pictured 32" LCD flat screen found its way into our house, complete with 5.1 surround sound. But, you can see that the NY Giants have eyes, noses and mouths with such a television. I hate it because it has a tendency to draw you into hour after hour of mindlessness. Don't get me wrong, I understand that sometimes you need mindlessness. But tv wastes so many hours of life (and countless brain cells, no doubt). Not to mention the effects of tv on "ADHD" - somewhere I read that when children labeled ADHD went a week or two without any screen time, their symptoms disappeared and when the screen was reintroduced, so were the symptoms. And I give credence to this because we have noticed a strong correlation with Jacob. Not to say that a half-hour of tv (or even a full length movie) here and there will cause him to bounce uncontrollably around the room. But if he watches a half-hour or hour every day, he quickly becomes dependant on the tv to entertain him, and his behavior becomes noticeably more unruly.

That's all for now, I need to go figure how to watch one show while recording another since The Office and Grey's Anatomy are on at the same time this week. :)