“Where is your TV? Did somebody steal it?”

The phrase in the title was uttered one day in our previous home by one of our many little visitors. We had become used to children who, visiting for the first time, after they had a tour of the house, would come up to us and ask where our TV was. They were usually surprised to hear when I answered that we did not own one. They were even more surprised to hear that we did not have one because we did not want one. This one sweet kid went one step further than asking us where our TV was, to surmising that we must not have one because someone must have stolen it. I thought that was cute.

The truth is that we made a firm decision not to have one. When Chuti and I got married, we didn’t have a TV for at least 2 years. When we eventually bought one, we bought one to watch movies. We did not have cable or satellite, meaning we didn’t watch television. A while after we had K in 2002, we got a satellite dish for some reason, a reason I can’t remember. It was just the thing to do, I guess. Obviously, we did not put a lot of thought into it. After that, we moved into my parents place from July of 2005 until January of 2006, during which we built our dream home (this subject will be covered in many posts that I am currently working on). My parents have two televisions and while Chuti and I were busy designing the house and working, our kids withered away in front of the TV. I literally saw them, especially K lose a part of themselves, an important part of themselves – some of their joyful creativity. We had been given some of those Baby Einstein DVDs and I thought I was doing my kids a favor letting them get glazed out in front of the tv being sucked into a state of passive entertainment allowing them to watch and learn from these great educational programs.

When we built the house, we had a huge area custom built for a beautiful 60″ high definition television we were going to buy. This was in the family room. That was the only part of the ‘dream house’ Chuti and I both felt we rushed and were unhappy about. By the time we moved in, we were really not happy about our choice of decor. We still had our smaller TV from before we built our home and we had that for a while, but again only to watch movies. Pretty soon, we really felt that it was going against our conscience to keep the TV. I could see, especially in K, who had been our television baby (the one who watched before day care and then after) that I was doing him a disservice. D had been much more imaginative and K was able to keep up only because his sister was a good leader and helped him tap into his creative ideas. I felt K would be able to be even more imaginative if there was no TV. After we gave the TV away, it was hard for K. he missed his DVDs and sometimes I missed them too. He looked forward to going to his grandparents, where he could watch TreeHouse. I kept offering him other options, like playing outside a lot (which thankfully he loved even in -40 degree C weather) to keep him away from the television.

It was a long haul, but it paid off in spades. It has been over a year where the kids have chosen not to watch (even Treehouse or any other programs) anywhere. They have watched some movies, but mostly they are too occupied with the vast store of imaginative activities they have concocted that they do not even think about turning on the television. As of the end of 2008, D, on her own, decided to go on a tv fast. This was amazing, but not too surprising. She is very good at learning early what is good for her and being disciplined to do it or not do it, as the case may require. When I observed K choosing not to watch and doing other things, that was a huge moment for me, a turning point. Now, this same boy, who I feared I had dulled his imagination by allowing him too much easy access to the television, is this amazing writer. He writes letters and stories by the bucketful. He also reads voraciously. Just in the last 5 days, he has read two books (> 200 pages each)  all by himself. This is now a common thing to see him walking around the house, book in hand.

The best thing about figuring these things out when I only had D and K is that M and H are spared from this cycle. They don’t even know to ask about the TV. They see it at other peoples’ houses, but it doesn’t even occur to them to want to watch.

Not watching television offers us many great blessings. Before I forget, when we want to watch a movie, we just watch it on our computer. The kids also watch live tennis, which we watch online through tennistv.com. We borrow other video media for home school sometimes and watch them on the computer. Here  are the benefits we have found in no particular order:

1. We spend face to face time with each other a lot;
2. We choose active entertainment such as a board game, reading a book, coming up with a million things to do with our imaginations;
3. We use the time we would have watched television to practice and develop mastery in leadership, tennis, violin and whatever else excites us;
4. We are not subjected to commercials drawing us in and the kids don’t even think to ask for stuff, stuff, stuff;
5. We are not subjected to watching the negative news and get down on life, we choose what information we want to put into our minds.

When I happen to see television now, I find it hard to watch, especially the commercials. The kids have said the same as well. I really notice the quickness of the screen change and it makes me a little nuts to watch. It’s always a relief to turn it off. I was never addicted to television watching, but I did enjoy my favorite shows. This different thinking is a switch for me and I am thankful to have made it now, so that I can enable my kids to have a chance at a life of creative play like I did when I was growing up, as well creative thinking like I am engaging in now.