Managing Television in the Home
Television watching should be a fun and relaxing activity for kids and adults alike—but too often it's a source of family conflict.
If you're concerned about television, banning it isn't a practical solution. Instead, you need to learn to co-exist with television by managing how much your kids watch, and what.
Sick Days
I work from home, and I think that means my kids get more sick days than the average student. It’s pretty easy for them to convince me that they need a day of rest if they have a bit of a cough or a slight fever. I admit I’m probably too easily swayed and I do tend to cave in when they look up at me with big sad eyes from where they have swooned onto the couch.
An inch wide and a mile deep
Surely you've heard of Inspector Spacetime, the cult British TV series that's run (with interruptions) since 1962. It has a tremendously active, engaged fanbase that's created blogs, videos and music devoted to it. Oh, and one more thing -- it never existed. It was made up as a thirty-second gag on the sitcom Community, as a parody-cum-homage of Doctor Who.
Talking to kids about media violence
Talking to kids about violence in the media they consume – television, movies, video games, music and the Internet – can help them put media violence into perspective and perhaps diffuse some of its power.
Family TV Time
Sometimes I wonder if watching TV is going the way of the dodo. Remember when we were kids, and there was concern about how watching TV was going to turn all of us into mindless zombies?