Unplugged

Funny how the minute I say I am on a blogging vacation my mind begins to swirl with many things that I want to share with my readers. So much for the vacation.

I admit that Papa and I used TV way more then we should have with Selena, we monitored everything she watched, but as she has matured, her tastes have changed and the familiar stations and cartoons became very boring for her. I can’t say I blame her for that, after all there is so many times you can watch the same episodes over and over again. We tried a few new cartoons on a different channel only to discover that our little girl was becoming a little monster. Just as we had a schedule figured out with some decent cartoons, the station swapped up their schedule, bummer since many of the cartoons I really enjoyed to watch too.

Anyway I was talking with Papa the other evening and we were discussing how suddenly Selena was becoming uncontrollable mouthy, and wild in her behaviors. We have had this same discussion many times, since he always was good at giving in to her and letting her watch what she wanted to watch just to try to keep her from getting on his nerves. I’ve tried to point out that she acts this way when he is home just knowing she will get her way and he will switch over from the movie we are watching, or the baseball game just to get some silence out of Selena. *Not a good habit to form*

Monday I finally reached my limit with one full week of watching Selena mouth off to her Papa, and now beginning to get pretty mouthy with me. I had seen enough out of control bouncing through the house, so I did something that I don’t think Selena or Papa ever thought I would do, I unplugged the TV. Well not literally, but I turned off the TV, hid the remote and turned on a little nice music on the radio for background sound. Of course at first Selena wanted to know why I did this, so we discussed her behaviors and how inappropriate they have been. She tried to talk me into going back to the old cartoons, to which I told her NO, she didn’t watch them anyway since they were all reruns, she was just going to have to figure out other things to do with her time.

She truly has not complained at all. She spends her time reading, playing cards with me, working on her puzzles, building with her legos, and talking with us. We are three days into this new way of life, I love it and we are beginning to see the pay off of once again pulling Selena back to her polite, happy self. I have set my goal to go a whole month with no TV. I am not so sure that this won’t be a normal thing in our home. I will watch the schedule to see if an interesting educational or fun age appropriate movie is on, but other wise it is no TV in our home.

The greatest challenge will be the weekend when Papa is home. Will he be able to keep the TV off? Well, we will let him watch sports, but will he be able to refrain from giving into Selena and turning on cartoons? I guess time will tell and I will have to let you know how it goes. I will say though that I am very proud of Selena for not complaining, not asking, and for a quick adjustment period.

I know some of my readers do watch TV while some have a no TV policy or very little TV policy. I did not write this as a debate, I still feel TV is OK for a child so long as the shows are age appropriate. I also know though that TV can be addictive, and can easily become out of control.