Battling the Television

Chris and I have long talked about becoming a TV-free family. It has so many benefits, we know it, we don't dispute it. But it's really hard. Interestingly, I think it is even harder to cut back on television because I am a stay-at-home mother (I don't get a break, I don't send my kids to daycare/preschool); also, John, in particular, happens to have a tremendously high desire/need for interaction. He has never played independently and only now, at three years old, will play for ten minutes alone (really, with Mary, so he's still not alone) a few times per day. In contrast, my 16-month-old happily plays alone much more than her big brother--quite different temperaments!

I often think (bitterly) of myself as running a preschool, except that instead of lasting two to three hours, mine lasts about 15 hours per day (5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.) and I don't have the ability to focus only on the children, but simultaneously must run a home, cook, clean, and so forth. When one child is asleep, the other is usually awake. And there is very little time when they are asleep at night and I'm still awake. Thus, I end up relying on television as a babysitter, particularly after breakfast so I can clean the kitchen and use the computer, and later while I cook dinner. Chris and I don't watch television while the children are awake.

Chris and I recently listened to "Parenting as a Means to Holiness" by Colleen Hammond, in which she cites study after study (all secular) about the serious physical damage done to the child's developing brain by watching television, even briefly. All issues of morals and damage to the soul aside (and they should be enough reason!), the secular scientific studies are terrifying. And I'm not just being scared and manipulated by academic studies: I can see the results. I can see that John becomes more and more aggressive with the more television he watches. I can see that he is continually nagging me to watch television and says he does not want to play with his toys, read his books, or go on fun adventures.

As longtime readers of this blog know, I've talked about going TV-free multiple times. We are reinvigorated to try again to cut back dramatically the children's television consumption. I have to admit, though, it is an exhausting venture.

We do a lot of arts and crafts around here. John needs so much interaction that, unless he's glued to the television, he's next to me, talking to me, asking me questions, wanting to do a project or play a game with me. Even if I take him outside, he wants me to toss the ball with him or pick up sticks with him or look at something he found. That all sounds fun and idyllic until you think about doing it for five or six hours in a row, two shifts a day. He just doesn't play on his own and, if I try to force him to play alone, he hits his sister, which is a whole other subject that I won't get into in this blog post.

Yesterday, among the many projects I set up for John, we made a lady bug out of a nut I found in the yard, as described in the fantastic, I-can't-recommend-them-enough Maryknoll Treasure Box books.

Today my heart was pierced to witness the above scene. The DVDs are on a shelf John can reach with a stool and lately he has been obsessed with pulling down DVDs and looking at the pictures on the outside or in the pamphlet. My children have a wonderful, edifying library full of gorgeous, classic, age-appropriate books, which I read to them many times per day (easily a dozen books a day), yet my three-year-old would rather sit and study Hollywood DVDs, peppering me with questions about the stories inside them. That is not okay with me!

So I moved the DVDs into a cabinet so John won't glance at them all day, being reminded of his beloved DVDs. I put in that spot our CDs that are classical music or Gregorian chant, as well as a delightful series of Catholic radio plays. Up there I keep a photo of a statue of the Holy Family to remind me to keep our viewing and listening holy.

While rearranging, I came across my beloved CD of "Peter and the Wolf," so I popped it in because I wanted to listen to it while I did chores. A few minutes into it, John began asking questions and I realized it was a "homeschooling moment" I needed to grab, so I stopped my chores and really focused.

I would interpret the music for John, explaining to him how this music was the sound of this character, that music was the sound of that character. I showed him how to listen to what the storyteller was saying so he could follow the story. I'd repeat the words the storyteller said to train John how to listen. I even marched around the kitchen, acting out all the characters and animals for John.

John was gripped! He could hardly wait and would ask with a twinkle in his eye, "What is happening now?!" He began to recognize the instruments and would tell me that such-and-such character was back. Chris came home from a meeting in the midst of our listening and, as soon as he opened the door, John burst out shouting, "We are listening to 'Peter and the Wolf'! The wolf ate the duck! Peter caught him with a rope around his tail! They are going to the zoo! The bird was flying around!"

Then we listened to "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." As each instrument was played, I'd pull up an image of it on the Internet to show John. John would make interesting commentary, such as that a certain instrument sounded like the wolf, or sounded happy, or "this is big music!" (said of the brass instruments).

After listening to probably 45 minutes straight of classical music without moving off his Learning Tower, standing in rapt attention, John asked me if we could please, please listen to it all again right away. He also then drew the comparison that this story of "Peter and the Wolf" "is similar to 'The Cross Country Cat'"--a book given to me by my Aunt Sarah when I was two years old and to which I introduced John this week--"because the cross country cat skied into the woods and the sun went behind a cloud and it got lonely and a grey wolf tried to eat him!" My bookworm's heart soared at that moment!

Then we went up to the bonus room to play and were reading some books. John went to the corner bean bags to "read" a book all by himself. He turned each page and, to my utter astonishment, invented a four-line poem for each picture (four or five of them), saying it with a sing-songy voice and ending the second and fourth lines with a rhyme or near rhyme! It seems that my reading poems to the children has been worthwhile after all.

God, thank you for piercing my heart with conviction and for giving me a mother's reward so early in my efforts yet again to rid our home of too much television. Please give me the strength to continue in this effort and be merciful when I stumble.