I don’t regret it. Not one minute.
We are TV people. We limited his time to less than 2 hours a day at specific times and chose with him the shows he would watch. This was a hard family decision to make. I won’t lie. I will tell you that sometimes I just wanted a break and wished it were back in it’s place. I don’t regret it. Not one minute. Our family has really thrived because of it.
Dear Son,
I know we sat down as a family and talked about it. I bet you are still wondering why we decided to take away television. I want to tell you that it was a tough choice your dad and I had to make to take away television. We needed to. It simply wasn’t enough to say we just weren’t going to turn it on for awhile. We had to physically remove and take away television. Everyone needed to have it taken away not just you.
Before we decided to take away television, it seemed like it was causing you more stress and anxiety instead of relaxation. Even with a structured time for television, you always hoped it would remain on or we would let you watch one more show. Sometimes we did, so we made it inconsistent for you to understand when it was time to turn it off. That was our fault, so we are going to start with a clean slate.
Why did we need to take away television? Because we all loved it a little too much. Yes, all of us. We all needed a break. We all needed to find our way back to more family time and less television time. We decided to take away television to enjoy each other more, enjoy family dinners again, and enjoy more free play time.
We didn’t realize what we were missing until we took it away. You asked for it for awhile, but it didn’t seem to bother you much when we said we weren’t watching TV. Now you don’t even ask. We have enjoyed playing board games, building Legos, swimming, and reading books more than ever. We are learning how to have family dinners together and use good manners. I think we are generally just in a better mood all around.
We decided to take away television to learn how to live without it not depend on it, to find new ways to enjoy our time. We did it for our family. It wasn’t meant to be a punishment to anyone. We wanted to play more. We wanted you to find new things to do instead of waiting for the television time. Even mommy and daddy needed to spend more time together with you and with each other.
Can I tell you that mommy and daddy are so proud of how you handled the situation when we decided to take away television. Maybe you already felt like it was hard to handle watching TV, always wanting more. We thought we would just take away television for a week. IT’S BEEN A MONTH since we made the decision to take away television. It was the best decision ever. Plus now we get to watch family movie night from our bed on the computer.
We took away television because we love you, and we love our family.
Love always,
Mommy and Daddy
Side Note: Will we put the television back in the living room? I can honestly say, I don’t know. Our decision to take away television has had such a positive impact on our family dynamics. It has shown the grownups how much we relied on TV in many ways. For our family, decisions often have to be black and white with specific expectations. We may just keep every Saturday night as movie night instead. My husband and I also enjoy an after bedtime movie for a date night since we don’t go out on dates. Who knows what the future will bring but with warm weather around the corner, we will be too busy outside anyway.
We are also learning hot manage ADHD at home without medication. Read here.
Some activities, games and building ideas to try for your screen free week or even day..
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Amanda
Sounds like you are doing what’s right for you! We just got a tv after 12 years of not having one and it is REALLY nice to be able to turn on an educational show once or twice a week so that I can have a mini break. I do notice the asking for more starting and will remain firm to our family rules.
Melanie
sounds awesome! Recently we took away all screens during the week except for a preschool show on during afternoon rest time for my non-napping, non-reading littlest two. During the weekend, I let them kinda have free reign while I get some things done, and since we have five kids waiting for turns on the wii, and the screen time competes with sports and church stuff, it doesn’t feel too bad. I looovvee that it isn’t on all week. Love! I might allow an educational show for my oldest on my laptop during summer break (Liberty’s Kids, Cyberchase, that sort of thing) . I would encourage anyone to cut back or get rid of it. My 10yo is autistic and can be very obsessed with his shows and such. When we first cut back, he spent a week crying and begging us to stop “punishing” him….we had many talks like you wrote out above. I honestly thought it was a mistake after all, that maybe we should go back. We pushed through. By week three, he was hardly asking at all. It is now around week five or six I think? and it is just our new normal. My son is slowly learning new ways to entertain himself. It is much better this way for him, because when the screens are on he has no motivation to do anything else, and everything else is just killng time until his next screen turn.