As the school days dwindle down to a precious few--ok who am I kidding?--we are on a speeding freight train to Summer Vacation! And no matter if you've got a swanky family getawy planned or are preparing yourself to blow up the kiddie pool, chances are your kids are going to have a lot more free time on their hands (and yours) and will be gratitating toward one screen or another. In this first of our series on kids and screen-time, I'll offer some tips that may help you curb the urge to use the idiot box as a full time babysitter, and embrace it for the good, and sometimes even great, things it has to offer your kids.
For most households in the US, a totally TV free home is not very realistic, and perhaps not too appealing, either. I am right there with (most) of you. I’m no unimommer--but when my kids were really little we were, happily, TV free…so carefully making the transition into welcoming that seductive colorful box is what this is all about. Because you don’t want to end up with a free-for-all gorge on 899 channels, and a bunch of couch potato zombies, I’ll offer you several different approaches to a green and modified TV, (and computer.)
Here’s the abbreviated story of how it went for my family:
