Social Adjustment and Lack of TV

I haven't had television for over 30 years (although for the past few, my husband and I do have a small set dedicated to watching videos a couple of times a week). We don't feel culturally detached – we do listen to public radio, which has wonderful programming and news – we keep informed about almost all modern culture except TV actors' names.

The year I left the TV behind was the year I left my first marriage behind. The tube had been on almost 24 hours a day for years, and I could hardly endure the constant background noise. My daughter was about eight, toward the end of a school year, and at first she was upset not to have TV. Every few days she'd come home from school and beg me to get a television. I'd distract her with projects, picnics, trips to the library, and she'd be okay for a few more days.

Then we had a summer break away from most of her school friends, and she stopped asking. We were having an awful lot of fun. Spending time in nature. Having great conversations over board games. Reading good literature together. It really was idyllic. When the new school year started, I still didn't hear anything about getting a television. Until a few weeks later, when she came home and complained that her friends never did anything interesting – they only talked about television shows. YES!

She still scarcely watches TV, and so far has kept her 4.5yo son away from the tube, though they do watch a kid's video once in awhile. My grandson is very up-to-date on superheros and the more popular kids' toys because he hears about them at preschool and has "heroic" underwear. And he hears cultural references all the time in conversations with the many people in his life, including his own parents. Plus we have the space to introduce him to classical culture, upon which many more current references are based.

The single most wonderful thing about getting rid of commercial television is the lack of commercial advertising. It helped when I was a single mom bringing home barely more than minimum wage that my daughter wasn't begging for all the "latest." And nutritionally, it was easy to keep soda, sugared cereals and the like out of the house because she wasn't constantly being urged to crave them.

Oh, yeah, and the noise. Did I mention how much I appreciated the lack of constant noise? My daughter would tell you, I think, that she had a relatively calm and focused childhood without all that distraction. We were happy. She liked it so well she wants the same for her son.

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Teach him to ask the other kids what they're talking about. Specifically: "Tell me about it!" seems to work really well at this age.

And, btw, we haven't had cable or bunnyears for... gosh... years now. But they have these 2 amazing inventions: DVDs & Streaming Online. :D :D :D It means anything you might really want to / want to have him watch you grab a disc or stream via netflix and *poof*, watching with intent and without commercials.

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I haven't owned a TV in many years. I have never let my 4 year old watch it in my own home. Yet we own Dora blankets and underwear and backpack. She also went through a Spiderman phase last year, and knows quite a bit about Thomas the Train. Media will leak through into your lives, so don't worry about that:) Product placement and marketing is waaaaaay more powerful than TV:)Other kids will share their experiences, and other people will let them watch TV.(family and friends)

I grew up without TV for the first ten years of my live overseas, and it was not hard to "catch up" on the things you think your son will miss out on:)

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My child is 7 and we have not had cable in about a year, BEST choice I have made! We do have an antenna and we get 1 news station and about 12 PBS stations! She will willingly wake up on Sat/Sun morning and watch clifford or whatever "toddler" cartoon is on. We do have Netflix and stream it through out Wii, and she has recently learned how to operate it to find her favorite shows/cartoons. (her current favorites are Rugrats and the pink panther cartoons!). At school, she seems to be fine, still hangs out with the same friends, has plenty to talk about, ect... The few timesI have been around and the group starts talking about a certain show, she just tells them, "We don't have cable, so I haven't seen that yet" and the conversation continues!

Hope that helps!

L.

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Good for you for being able to stay away from the tube!! I don't think your son will suffer an negative consequences, he simply will have different interests and he will view the pop culture stuff a little differently. For example, he'll see (or receive in a birthday goody bag), a Thomas sticker and he'll like it because Thomas is a cute little train.

I wouldn't worry about it. At some point you won't really be able to avoid his exposure to pop culture. Hopefully that won't come until he get into to school and play dates with other kiddos.

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I never had TV growing up, up until I was 10 or so I didn't realize how different this was. To this day there are still cultural references I "don't get" because I missed a lot of things growing up.

There is no right answer for this one. Yes, your child will miss a lot of references and as he gets older will get some strange looks from the kids who do "get it" and are in the know. However, not having a TV will mean he has to fill up his time in different ways. In my case, I read.... A LOT. Not the best choice either IMHO, as sitting and reading for 4-5 hours can be just as socially limiting as sitting in front of the TV for that length of time. But, if you encourage him to go outside, or play sports, etc it will work out.

My personal approach is to not prohibit something, be it certain foods, tv, games, iPods, what have you. It's not productive. My choice is to introduce things in an appropriate way and have them learn how to set their own limits. GL in your decision.

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We never had cable, not now, nor when I was growing up. There were several shows I never saw, but still a lot I did and still felt socially in (like Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Smurfs...) We get the local channels by the antenna and only get the PBS and Qubo channel for kids.

Thomas the Train, Club House Mickey Mouse Club, Spider Man and such like that can be special rented every now and then for a treat. Or, he can play games online with them, so he gets some of the culture, without the bombardment of it.

For example, here is some of the Mickey games, my kids have never seen the show, but have seen a few clips online and played a few of the games:

http://tv.disney.go.com/playhouse/mickeymouseclubhouse/ga...

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ps... I wonder why Mallory P. is calling us all smug? I don't recall anyone being elitest about it? sounds very odd

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We don't have tv and I love it!!! We do have a television set and will watch dvd's, but we don't have any cable or antenna. One of the best choices we've made. We do have a netflix subscription, so we can watch on the computer, but it isn't as convient, so it isn't on nearly as much as the tv was, plus I can completely monitor what comes into my home. I wouldn't worry at all about being left out. My oldest is only 4, so I don't have an experience with school friends, but I know for my husband and I, we don't feel left out, plenty of other things to talk with friends about. I would encourage you to turn it off and enjoy your family!
Side note- I never had cable growing up (my parents just got it about 3 years ago, big deal after only having the basic 10 chanels for almost 35 years!) anyways, sure every once in a while a friend would mention a show that I had never seen, but it wasn't a big deal. Friendships and conversations didn't revolve around tv.

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It happened to me when I was a kid...my family restricted my TV watching to PBS and Sat AM cartoons only (with TV off promptly at 12 noon and no Sunday TV, unless it was PBS). I had never heard of lots of shows that my friends watched and did occassionally get teased for it. You know, it never bothered me. First, it only happened a handful of times, and I always thought that the girls who did tease me (one in particular) were losers, and so I would tell them "I have better things to do than watch TV all day." And that often did the trick to get her to back off. My son watches no more than a 1/2 hour of TV a day if he watches at all, and only watches one TV show (Backyardigans). That's the way we like it. In spite of that, he has gone on to learn most of the other cultural references through his friends at school. I did not teach him any of it. But, the nice thing is he does not beg or whine when he gets home and those cultral references are not reinforced (like he will see a Dora sticker at school, but rarely asks to watch Dora at home). So, I have found that it is really not a big deal, and when he gets older, he can use the tricks I used to stave off teasers at school.

Not having or watching TV does NOT make you boring or culturally behind! I am sorry, but knowing who SpongeBob Squarepants is does not make you culturally "forward' or interesting to me. As a kid, we listened to a lot of NPR, went to museums, went to the library a lot, botanical gardens....and so I was raised to believe that these experiences granted a much richer awareness of what is going in society and culture than TV. Culure is definitely a frame of reference, and TV is not the be all and end all to getting it.

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I want to quote a previous post: "A huge difference in my kids from others their age: they can entertain themselves VERY easily and their imaginations have NO bounds. Anything in our house is able to be something else entirely in their play. "

I think this is one of the most valuable reasons of all to be thoughtful about television. As a preschool teacher, I ask parents NOT to send media images on clothes, lunchboxes etc. because they change how the children play--and not for the better. The characters are already prescripted, and the children have little wiggle room for imagination. When their imaginations are aflame, the play is wonderful and their stories take on situations that are rarely portrayed on the screen.

I'd also like to point out this: sometimes, "keeping up" with what other kids are watching would require allowing your child to watch content that is highly unsuitable for their age. The fact that so many parents think nothing of the sexualization and violence of many Disney movies is appalling, yet I know many kindergarteners who have watched (and can discuss at great length) the "Pirates of the Carribean" series. Little children who have watched "Star Wars" before an age of really understanding the story. (I watched it at a drive in when I was 8, not 4!) I only mention this as the extrapolation of your question...

Lastly, for what it's worth, I don't see any sort of "discrimination" in regard to children leaving kids out due to lack of knowledge about a character or show, or ridiculing, etc. What I might see on the playground is statements which instruct another child in the limitations of the character. ("Luke doesn't use a gun, he has to use his lightsaber", etc.) At preschool with my group, however, there's too much else to do. Kids generally want to play with other 'play-able' kids, and this has more to do with a child's social skills that anything to do with what sorts of media they are familiar with. This can change in the primary grades, but I'd put those worries of not fitting in aside for now. Worry less about television and focus more on providing positive interactions with other children--that's what 'fitting in' is all about!

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I don't have that experience-honestly sometimes I feel like throwing something into the TV so no excuses to turn the thing back on. I do not watch much TV so when coworkers talk about the great show, I have no clue. I dopn;t even know who most of these stars are. But I only miss a fifteen minute conversation. No biggie. If you are worried about him being left out by not knowing characters, there are a LOT of books. My daughter met Mickey Mouse on paper, not on TV. She does watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and a few other shows. But not everything.

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I think I know exactly how you feel! About 6 months ago, I signed my 3 year old daughter up with a class at our local community center. A 'storyteller' was the host and it was called a princess party. We aren't too into princesses, but I thought it would be something different and fun and was intrigued by the word 'storyteller'. I was embarrassed to discover that the entire event was centered around the Disney princesses! It was for ages 3, 4 and 5! All of the activities were centered around the princesses, who is the one who did this, and who is the one who did that. Having never seen any Disney movie at all, much less the Disney princess ones that are made for MUCH older kids (in my opinion), my daughter had no clue. I could tell she was a little surprised and irritated that all the girls seemed to know the answers to the questions during the felt board game. But, in the end she had fun anyways.

Yes I felt bad at the time, it is never easy to see your kid in a situation where she is 'different' but I tried to keep in mind that I am doing what I think is best for my kid.

As she gets older it is so hard to stick to my convictions of trying to limit TV time and limit what movies she watches. I am amazed when we give in and rent a G movie and it is so violent and scary and the characters are telling others to 'shut up' and calling names. How can we, as parents, be surprised that our kids ACT like that, if we let them WATCH that?!

A good resource I've found to help screen what your child DOES watch is www.commonsensemedia.org - the site is pretty good about rating and describing movies and tv shows.

PS In response to Mallory P's post: just because a mothers beliefs are different than yours, it doesn't mean she thinks she is better than you. Why don't moms get that? Why can't we just support each other knowing that we are all trying to raise our kids the best way we know how?

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When we moved a while back we scaled down to basic cable. No more Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. For us it has been a good switch. The boys don't just watch whatever is on, instead we go to the library and get the movies or tv episodes they like best. Right now we usually come home with Pokemon or Scooby Doo. I don't think that not knowing some of these shows puts them in a social disadvantage. There are so many shows out there that it is impossible to know them all anyway.
The biggest advantage of not having them watch that stuff on tv I find is the fact that they don't get to see the commercials. Before, when we went to the grocery store or to a store with toys, it was alway "I want this, I want that. Now they are much less whiney about wanting to get stuff because they don't see those commercials anymore that make the most boring toy seem like an incredible must-have item.

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My first born never watched tv - ever! I actually needed a bit of time here and there and would have love to get him to even sit down for 5 minutes and watch, but no go. He is in 5th grade now and although he does watch tv once and a while now, he didn't start until he was about 7 or so and never once did it make a difference socially. I wouldn't worry about it.

Good luck.

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We (meaning my sister and I) were "left out" as far as TV was concerned. The very Idea of taking TV OUT of a childs life in 2010 is ridiculous. TV is here and it is her to stay. We were not denied TV all together...but the "forbidin" TV is what did us in...we are 39 and 43....we watch reality shows like no ones business. Perhaps if we had TV at our disposal, we wouldnt hold it so sacred as adults? Who knows...my 3 year old always has TV on...she doesnt really pay too much attention to it...but its there. Take it away if that is what you feel is needed...just be warned...nothing of a good thing is just as bad as too much of a good thing.

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The answer is definitely "absolutely not." :)

We have never had cable (and don't ever plan to...I have never watched much tv and my husband was raised on the thing). My kids get one movie a day for "rest time" if we are home...which is about 5 days a week, I guess. I'm having a third c-section in 12 days and they are 5 1/2 and 3 1/2...I need a break during midday if I can get it:).

A huge difference in my kids from others their age: they can entertain themselves VERY easily and their imaginations have NO bounds. Anything in our house is able to be something else entirely in their play. When a movie is on in many of my friends' houses, they complain that their kids will never sit through it so they can never get anything done. There is no "down-time" with their kids, they say. Mine will always sit through the entire thing. They act out the movies sometimes and incorporate things into their play. They will quote things or tell me minute details they noticed about it. Their attention spans (even the three year old) are awesome and the attention they pay to detail is amazing:).

Kids don't really discuss tv with each other at this age. And, to be honest, and adult can get by just fine without it too:). My husband and I watch absolutely no tv. I will sometimes watch the movie I turn on for the kids, but I often use that time for rest or me-time. I haven't watched a tv show in about five years, actually.

Stick to it, you're making a great decision for your family!

Loni

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You can "introduce" characters like that through books. Some of them like Thomas the Tank originally were books before it became a TV show. We always get books to go along with TV shows and my kids enjoy the books a lot.

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I think your son will fit in just fine! I liked someone's suggestion about having him say "tell me about it" when a kid is talking about a particular show. My son (who is 3) loves tv and talks about it when he meets other kids. I try to limit it because I worry that he is making too much of the "colorful characters" on tv and real life will seem boring in comparison. Honestly, if I had to do it over I would have exposed him to tv at a later age (I had him watching Baby Einstein dvds when he was around a year old).

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We had no tv until my eldest was 17. They watched videos. He is fine. And I have never seen Friends, The Simpsons, or any of those 90's and early 2000 tv shows. I didn't miss anything.
Plus there will be tv at firend's houses when he gets into school. He'll be fine.

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my 3 yr old has NEVER watched spiderman but he knows all about him. I don't really think watching tv has anything to do with it. There are thomas books, disney books, spiderman books, etc If you replace the tv time with reading a book he won't miss anything.

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We never had cable. We don't watch much live TV anymore and when we did it was mostly PBS channels. The last time I watched a movie on TV ("White Christmas" during the holidays) they cut out major portions of the classic so they could fit in more commercials. That was it for me. We bought it on DVD and now we can watch it properly without commercials and it's not been chopped to pieces.
We buy TV shows we enjoy on DVD and watch them that way. We read news on the internet. My son does not know every character on the Cartoon channel. When we are on vacation and we have access to cable at the hotel - most of it is mindless drivel, vulgar and violent. He doesn't even like what he sees on the kids channels. My son and his friends talk about the books they have read. They all score very highly on the Accelerated Reader tests and my son (he's 11 yrs old) reads at a 12th grade level. The pop-culture bubble burst awhile ago. Your son will do just fine without it.

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I have a friend whose husband decided one day to cut the cable off because he never watched tv. The kids and wife did of course. They play outside and participate in gymnastics, dance, BMX, soccer, and all kinds of activities to stay busy. I can honestly tell you that those kids are in a daze and will sit for hours in front of any TV they can find, watching anything, even decorating shows. If they come to my house I can't get them to do anything because they will sit and stare for hours at the TV. It's like they can't get enough. They usually only watched Boomerang and just only watched for a few minutes even if it was on. Now they cant stop.

I say leave the cable on and just monitor and minimize the exposure.

Good morning happy mama, TV can be very educational if watching the right shows, for example i have a 2 1/2 that knows many words in spanish from watching Dora, he's not Mexican, I have an 18 month old little mexican girl that learned how to say thank you in spanish by watching Dora. My oldest son now almost son now almost 27, watched the Price is right at age 20 months while sitting on the potty, he learned how to recongnize numbers 1-10 before the age of 2, and because of the wheel of fortune could recognized the entire alphabet before age 2, I work with him as well but those 2 shows got him started, I think you are doing hi an injustice by no TV at all. I think TV watching has to be monitored and I don't think children should be allowed to vegetate in from of the TV, But like I said TV can be educational.J.

My daughter watches a lot of tv, but not all of her friends do. they dont have any problem playing together.

Read him books, go to museums about trains, visit Spiderman places, etc...he can still learn about them without watching them on TV. I love the knowledge my kids get from some of the shows they watch, so we definitely have satellite...but to each their own, right? :). I would love to cut out some of the TV we watch. Good for you for being able to do it!!