Screen-Free

So, I vacillate between two extremes. I start out with the best intentions to keep my kids 90% screen-free. All goes well for a while until I have a sick kid who needs to rest and to stay calm, or I fell there is some task I MUST COMPLETE that justifies the use of the electronic baby-sitter. Suddenly we are on a slippery slope. Before you know it there are days with back-to-back Disney movies or afternoon marathons of Diego on Netflix. Yikes. Right now we are the midst of a TV crack-down. Smooch and I have agreed that the kids should only watch movies and play video games on the weekend. (Normy is big into a motorbike game on the IPad right now.) We are two weeks in and so far so good. It is amazing to me how much calmer and more able to engage in independent play the littles are when they aren't getting a daily dose of the silver screen. The need for TV seems to be cyclical thing: The kids are going crazy so you plug them in. When you try to turn the TV off they start bouncing off the walls because they have been stationary for too long so you start going crazy and think, "Hey kids! Want to watch Cinderella!?"

Well, I think we've turned a new corner. I think we might have found a sustainable counter-measure to the TV. Enter books-on-CD. I can't tell you how much my kids LOVE them. I'm a little surprised actually. Not only will they chill and listen to a couple of books when I need a moment of peace, but this activity usually acts as a springboard to more independent "reading" on their part. Wow. Had I known I would have pushed harder to get a library card sooner. The real upside, is that they are being exposed to books I might not have the time/patience to read them every day... like the twenty-five minute telling og John Henry... which is a great story which becomes AWESOME when actually told in the deep resonating baritone voice of a man that actually sounds like he could have been John. All I'm saying is: I think this is working!!!