Paying Attention in Primetime: Trading in Television Time for Reading Time

Today’s parents face unprecedented competition for influence in their children’s lives -never has there been a more concerted effort at marketing to children. Families concerned as much about what their children are learning out of school as in, have difficult choices to make. If parents want their children to be thinking, literate citizens they will have to take a stand and be involved – as much after school as during.

Sounds serious? For many households it is. A home is as valid a place of learning as a school. Ensuring children get a diet rich in mental vegetables can mean making unpopular decisions. Unfortunately, many parents would rather win the popularity contest than engage in battle. Leaving a child’s shaping, molding, learning and nurturing to chance, or to the unlimited viewing of 600 cable channels, is not a decision – it’s neglect.

Because I know many people don’t like to be lectured to, let me share an example from my own experience. Before I do it’s important to note that I was not a parent who had the first five years of my son’s life planned out. I learned on the job. Not a fashionable or popular statement among progressive parents, but it’s the truth in more families than we often admit. Suffice it to say that “parent involvement” is not a dirty word.

When my son was eight “we” had a problem. It took him an hour or more to get ready for bed. Although his bedtime was 9:00pm, I asked him to start getting ready around 8:00, so I could begin my ritual evening television line-up. I’d go to his room at 8:30 to put him in the shower and find him sitting there with half his clothes still on. Threatening him didn’t work; taking the treats out of his lunch didn’t work. Nor did raising my voice; that only guaranteed he went to bed upset. What was up with him? Didn’t he know that 8:00-9:00 was TV’s Primetime – and Frasier was waiting for me?

Every night there was some kind of confrontation. I ended up snarling at him for spacing off and playing when he was supposed to be getting ready for bed. I needed a solution for his get-ready-for bedtime routine, because I didn’t want to dread putting my boy to bed every night and I didn’t want to disrupt my nightly get-ready-for-primetime routine either.