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Too Much TV?
Setting Limits on Television Viewing
By Elizabeth Palmer
Two months before our scheduled August move, I broke the news to my sons: "We won't be connecting the television cable as soon as we move into the new house."
Flabbergasted, they cried in unison, "What? Why Mom?"
Without television?
Luckily I had discussed this issue with my husband prior to my announcement. He agreed that the whole family could benefit from delaying the cable connection. We've always had cable. In fact, we've never even attempted to watch television without the costly service. For our family, no cable meant no TV. It's not as drastic as it sounds -- we do watch movies on the VCR as a weekend family activity.
Johnson was also concerned about her own son's behavior as it related to watching television. "He was so unresponsive to me and to what was happening around him, that he seemed glued to the television set. Instead of creating his own play themes, he was simply re-enacting what he had just seen on TV in a very repetitive, uncreative and stilted way," she says.