We don’t have TV at home. I mean we own a TV set and a DVD player but when you turn the TV on, there are no channels. My husband didn’t even bother with the rabbit ears. It doesn’t mean we don’t watch anything. On the contrary, when we can make it, my husband and I like to relax with a movie after kids go to bed. We get news online and watch movies on Netflix, Amazon, or on DVDs.

Our kids have always watched just DVDs so that we’d avoid all the commercials kids are exposed to nowadays. We could also limit their screen time to shows or movies we thought were worth it. When they were little and we were on a month-long road trip, we’d stop at motels for a night and let them watch TV in the morning while we were packing. It was a better option to having them call the reception ten times in a row playing with the phone. It was funny because they’d get terribly upset when they wanted to pause a show to go to the bathroom but we told them we couldn’t. The whole concept of “unpausable” TV broadcasting was totally unknown to them. They thought we didn’t want stop the show on purpose.

I don’t think our kids feel deprived—they have seen a lot of movies and shows. Our daughter complains now and then that she cannot join her classmates in conversation when they talk about a show she has never seen but that’s all. Besides, we don’t have time to watch anything during the school week anyway. I know we are not the only ones – many of our friends have the same rules at home even though they have cable.

I have recently read The Read-aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. He writes about the impact of TV on our lives and on the kids’ reading scores. To read a little more about this great book, click here.