How would you limit television viewing among your children?

A List of Measures

When our children were young, we did numerous things to limit television watching. We adults decided what they could or couldn't watch, and for how long. We encouraged lots of outdoor play -- ball games, bicycles, skating, hide and seek, and so on. We didn't put a television in their bedrooms. We took them to places like zoos, parks, museums, the beach and the city, every weekend we could. We made trips to the local library a family excursion every single week. We bought toys that encouraged dramatic play, such as the super heros and G.I. Joes.

We invited relatives and their friends to our home frequently. We had our children work on homework at the dining room table every day, including weekends. We had dinner together every single night. We assigned the children chores every day. We talked and listened to each other every day about friends, family, school and work.

And we had them shower and go to bed very early every school night.



From One Who Knows

I have a brother eight years younger than I am and often care for him. I have found alternatives to wasted hours in front of the television. I still haven't forgotten how I liked to sit right where he sits, put in a daze by insignificant programs. I tell him to go outside and play with his friends or do something else with his time. I want to wake him up a little and show him what he's missing.


Midland Park

A Simple Solution

Why is there so much discussion about a ''problem'' whose solution is so simple? Turn the set off and keep it off. Of course, this is easier to accomplish if the parents are not chronic viewers themselves. So many parents enlist television to entertain their infants and toddlers, then wonder why Einstein doesn't emerge when the little addicts enter school.



Advice for Little Ones

It is very hard for working parents to control what their kids watch on television, and the ratings doesn't really help unless the parents are there to monitor what they watch. I think it would be best for very young kids not to watch at all, except for educational videos.