No Television

Our family did not acquire a television until I was about ten years old. When we did finally have a black and white one in our possession, some rules came with it.

• No TV before school on a weekday
• No TV until after homework is finished
• If the sun is shining and it's Saturday, turn the TV off and go and play outside
• Meal times are to be shared together in the kitchen, not eaten in the loungeroom
• No TV on Sunday - It's the Lord's day and we don't need to watch it then
• Certain TV programs were not allowed

We grew up with no adverse side effects and although each of my siblings and I are more lenient in allowing our children to watch TV, we didn't suffer because of it. When we were first married, we couldn't afford a TV and when we lived in our next home, we couldn't 'get' TV reception. We survived that too.

Last Friday, my students and I came up with an exercise not to watch TV for a whole week and the responses of the students and their parents has been eye-opening. Now I am beginning to wonder how we did survive without TV when I was a child. After all, we couldn't watch videos, play computer games, play on the computer nor did we have (since it was not yet invented) a Playstation or Gameboy.

A parent came to me and said, "My child gets up at 6am, what's he supposed to do at that time of the morning?"
One parent said, "A week is too long a time to go without a TV."
One dad suggested that the whole family take up the challenge.
A mother told me how her daughter had earned some extra pocket money by helping in the garden.
Another parent commented that her children don't get on as well as she thought they did and she wanted to turn the TV on to get some "peace and quiet".

I actually found it sad that students and parents are so used to TV. The TV has become a necessity rather than a luxury. Whatever happened to imagination? How did I spend my childhood not having access to a TV?

• We climbed trees
• We played cops and robbers
• We played Hide n' seek
• We rode our bikes
• We read books
• We drew and made things
• We played games and made up games
• We visited our friends
• We played cricket and footy (depending on the season)
• We cooked (or some of us did)
• We went to bed earlier than most children these days seem to
• I wrote stories and made up songs
• We played with blocks

What makes all this sad is we're letting the TV to our thinking for us. We're don't need to use our imagination or get creative because the TV does it for us. The TV dominates our life and we're all so used to it that we complain when it's taken from us for a week. A week without TV is hardly going to ruin our lives, is it?