Save and nurture your kids BRAINS and STOP them from watching TV!!
Prerna Sinha
Let’s start with the argument, as what do we watch on Television? Most of us are addicted to daily soap operas,and though some start with a great promise, after their 35th episode they all tend to become drab. Infact, once noticed on the Indian Television that if a protagonist in one soap is getting married, at least 5-6 different soaps will be having some sort of marriage celebrations, it’s almost as if they have run out of stories. For kids, I used to think that watching cartoons is a refreshing activity and harmless fun. Until, one day I sat down and watched ‘Shin-Chan’,”Oggy and the cockroaches’ and even the new ‘Tom and Jerry’.’Shin Chan’, is a mean badly behaved, rebellious mischief monger. Oggy- and his gang, just talk terribly and have a terrible accent(influenced from Bollywood). Now what was wrong with ‘Tom and Jerry’? They were showing so much violence that I was surprised, my little one was hitting us with a stick and finding it funny, in the same way that ‘Tom’ was running after ‘Jerry’.
Why did we do it?
I can list a host or reasons here but primarily, my eight year old, would unwind in front of the TV and would refuse to shut it down even after hours of viewing . Everytime, I would try and switch it off, there would be bargaining and rebellious behaviour. It penetrated so much in his system , that he started walking and talking like one of the characters from the cartoons(which was funny at first, but then got annoying). His grades started slipping and what I disliked the most was that he was angry all the time. Basically, between school, homework, his classes and TV he had no time to relax or even sit with us and chat, which slowly was making him an angry person.It was a vicious cycle, till one day my husband got mad and he told him no TV for a week, either for him or for us.
How did we do it?
My husband’s approach was to go cold turkey for the entire family and we all yelled ‘unfair’!The first two days went peacefully, as we were too scared to challenge. The third day, I cheated when the kids were in school and felt guilty almost immediately. My elder one figured out somehow that I had been watching TV and wanted to watch , so I made a promise to him and myself that I will not cheat and set an example. So we went on not watching and would have gone back to watching, had my elder one not done another blunder and gotten grounded again. This time, my husband banned TV for a month.
Did it work?
Lack of TV in the house, gave everyone a lot of time in hand and everyone did things that they had been lining up. My husband got time to read up a lot of business news, my elder son went back to his first love-reading. I finally, got the time to restructure and organise my blog and social media space and the best part of it all was that we started spending a lot of time together. It wasn’t that sudden, but a slow gradual change in attitude of all of us. We were less angry with each other and emoted better. Not sure if it’s scientifically linked, but happened to all of us. The most drastic change is in my elder
son, not only is he happier , he is also performing much better in his class. And as for us, it’s been two months and we don’t miss it at all(though we did make an exception for the Football world cup).
Why Should you do it? (Scientific reason )
Research has shown that when you are watching TV, your higher brain regions shut down, and activities shift to the lower brain regions [Source: TV: Opiate of the Masses]. Your lower brain is set in a “fight or flight” response mode. In the long run, your higher brain regions experience atrophy due to lack of usage. There have been studies that TV viewing among children leads to lower attention and poorer brain development.
It’s not so bad and you will be doing yourself and your kids a favour, as you would get plenty of time for each other and recreational activities.
Practicing a skill — whether it’s swimming or riding a tricycle — improves their abilities and helps them feel accomplished, especially when the effort is noticed and praised. This will help them grow as better individuals and think and perform in life.
How long should you do it for?
There will come a point where you will question this? Afterall, in your mind you have equated ‘not watching TV’ to ‘boredom’.
There has been research which shows that it takes 21 days(scientifically proven) to fully cultivate a new habit because 21 days is the time required for new neuropathways to be fully formed in your brain.Trust me a little more than 21 days and I am assuring, you won’t even miss it.
Hope you find this read interesting and benefit from it.
