Adventures in Parenting

This week is National TV Turn-Off Week. Are you joining in the challenge?

Our elementary school gives incentives – small prizes and a popsicle at the end of the week for the students who can keep their TV off for the entire week – parents can’t watch either!

When my daughter was in 5th grade, it was her habit to come home, relax with a snack and watch TV for an hour. I thought an hour of TV after school was reasonable.  However, when TV Turn-Off Week came around, she was motivated by the prizes at school, and decided she would keep the TV off for one week.

For one week, my daughter started on her homework immediately after school while she ate her snack. She was amazed and pleased at how much she was able to get done before dinner. Most of the days, she finished all her homework before dinner. The rest of the evening was free time.

Not only did she get the prizes at school for not watching TV for a week, my daughter developed a new habit. From then on, she didn’t want to “waste her time watching TV.” “They were pretty dumb shows anyway,” she said.

TV watching can become just a habit. When you don’t watch it, you are not really missing anything in life. Instead, you have more time to do other things you enjoy more.

It’s a good thing she developed this practice now that she is in 8th grade. With the amount of assignments and projects from 5 classes instead of just one class in elementary school, the time gained from TV Turn-Off Week is serving her well.

I like the slogan on TVTurnoff.org –