There is something in my house besides summer’s insects that has been humming along happily since school let out. Filing my children’s brains – one impressionable nine-year-old’s in particular – with fluff and stuff. Fluff like toy ads: “the AMAZING Slushy Magic™ available for only four easy payments of $9.99.” Stuff like potty humor and child-friendly, anti-adult one-liners.

This something has been sucking valuable brain cells into “infinity and beyond” for a two months now. This something has been drawing kids to my family room couch, catching the attention of any under-eighteen-year-old that walked into its hypnotic path. This something has been the source of much frustration on my part – “No you may not watch that smut” – as well as a rare bright spot on an even rarer rainy summer day. But this something’s reign is once again coming to its seasonal end.

Beginning in two short weeks with the start of the school year my TV, our one and only, will – Gasp! – go dark Monday through Thursday.

“Why,” you may ask?

“How do you pull that off,” you may snort?

“What about…about…about…,” you may stammer?

Well gather ‘round Mums and Dads and I will share with you the parenting tool of the century – the “TV-Free School Week.”

Most of us enjoy a little TV. Downton Abbey *sigh.* Suits. America’s Got Talent. The nightly news, the morning news, the all-day news. The Jersey Shore – ahem, to each her own. Even the kids have their favorite programs. Fetch, Cyber Chase, Jessie, Phineas and Ferb, Shake It Up. But it is the amount of TV and its juxtaposition with learning that poses the problem.

During the school year most of our children are in school 7-9 hours a day, not counting travel time. That’s out of a waking 13-14 hours. After homework, extra-curricular activities and family time (without TV as the main family member) that leaves little time for relaxation, discovery, just “being.” Moreover, numerous studies now show that TV is not really rejuvenating for our brains. It can feel like it, but actually it is putting us in a trance-like state that – while it may feel restful – really is not giving our brain necessary downtime, most especially the developing brains of children.

So when our youngest daughter’s preschool teacher recommended implementing TV-free school weeks I was intrigued. The goals were simple: No TV viewing during the school week, Monday through Thursday evenings and limit TV viewing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to a reasonable amount.

Many parents balked, myself included. Not because we didn’t believe in the concept, but more because we didn’t think they could pull it off. As I said before TV is soooo mesmerizing. But given my dislike of “screen time” and the fact that we had already endured some homework battles over it, I figured it was worth a try.

So how did we do it? With patience and perseverance!

  • We stated the new rule ahead of school starting.
  • We stood our ground and didn’t give in no matter the level of whining or pestering.
  • We taped a piece of paper over the TV screen that said “TV Break” and kept it flipped down as a reminder that there was no watching TV. (With the implementation of “parental controls” we now set our TV to a password that only the adults know.)
  • We had a plan for weekends and let our kids participate democratically to come up with the amount of viewing time for these days. In the end we had hammered out 1.5 hours – about the time it took to watch one regular movie or three programs – on Fridays and 2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays for a total weekend viewing time of 5.5 hours.
  • We allowed few exceptions to the rule: generally sleep overs/parties/movie outings with friends on weekends did not count toward viewing time and scholarly programs required by school were permitted.

In the end it took us about two to three weeks to get through the pestering period and then we had a new normal. The kids just knew that we were not giving in and they found other things to do with their time: playing, homework, reading, even a few light chores! If we slipped up and allowed a program for whatever reason they were back at the pestering so we just made sure not to slip up again!

That was all seven years ago. Since then TV viewing during the school year has been fairly consistent – no M-F, weekend viewing only. Every summer we do allow daily watching with our own personal parameters. And we do have to get back on track each fall.  There is whining and complaining, but after a few weeks it is like an old habit and we are a little happier and less time crunched than if we didn’t have the rule.

Good luck and if you must blame someone, blame me!