5 Reasons My Kids Watch As Much TV As They Want

The parenting web-sphere is often full of lamentations about kids watching too much TV or having too much "screen time" (a term meant to encompass TV, computers, tablets, phones, game systems, et. al.). Dire warnings about four hours of TV a day leading to reduced grades in school and of course will make them "obese zombies."

I wish I was making that up but those are the words this author uses. She also says, "But I don't let them [watch TV] because I love them." Wow. Hear that? If your kids watch TV you must not love them.

Unfortunately, TV has become the new litmus against which we can feel superior to other parents. "My kids are screen free," is an actual thing said between mothers (or worse, a shocked, "you let your kids watch TV??"). 

Meanwhile, my kids have their own TV in their playroom (not their bedroom - one of my few limits is that we don't fall asleep to TV.), access to Xbox and Wii, a tablet, and a phone. They choose when they use these devices and what they watch on them. 

Balancing the fearmongering in a way that lets you make the best decision for your family is difficult amongst the sanctimony and conflated-and-flawed research. The amount of screen time that is optimal for your family is something only you can decide.

I don't want to convince you to do it my way. I want to propose some decisions-making points you may not have thought of. Here's how I decided.

1. I love Computers and TV 

For me the place to start deciding how I feel about my kids and screen time is how I feel about myself and screen time. If you hate the internet and all TV and don't enjoy it at all then you probably won't make TV part of your life. Computers, particularly social media, was a huge part of my profession as a librarian. I taught classes on using Facebook and Twitter in science when I worked at NASA. The same sites also play a huge role in my social justice work today.

Do we really think that screens are a "waste of time" or "rots brains"? I sure don't. I've written before about how I love Facebook. Having information and personal connection at my fingertips is valuable to me and to the world, in my opinion. There are plenty of people who spend 8 hours a day in front of a screen and they aren't lesser people, right?

How do you know your child isn't a budding screenplay witter, director, game designer, or social media expert? How can you think that screen time is rotting their brains or a waste of time?

2. My kids aren't in school all day

This is a huge difference for me. Most of the studies are of children who go to modern schools. They spend 8 hours a day with very regimented and adult-directed activities. It doesn't surprise me at all that these kids want the mindless release of TV time after "working" all day at school.

My kids have TONS of unstructured and self-directed play and exploration every day. They have the choice to sit in front of a screen all day but they don't. My theory is that schooled kids habituate to unidirectional information flow. They are receptacles for learning all day so when they have free time they are either too exhausted or have simply lost the initiative to do something else. 

If my kids were in school I might feel they needed prodded out of reception mode and into transformative mode of learning.

3. My kids aren't inside all day.

I could have called this "my kids aren't in school all day part two" because this reason also stems from the fact that we don't school. One of the "dire consequences" of screen time that is always touted is childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity is complete bullshit. Beyond that studies on kids and screen time often conflate screen time with obesity without explaining that this correlation is not causation (don't they love to say that when it is about vaccines though?). The problem with too much screen time isn't the evil of the screen but the absence of what kids would be doing instead of sitting in front of a screen.

Once again let's do the math: 8 hours of school + homework + 3 hours (national average) of screen time = hardly any time for anything else. That means that besides the short recess (that schools are always shortening or eliminating) and physical education (ditto), kids are trapped in doors doing "work" nearly ALL DAY LONG. Of course they want to unwind the way the rest of the humans around them unwind: TV, games, social media.

My kids have a 12 hour day with nearly zero demands on their time. Besides eating and outing days where we go to the library or grocery shopping, my kids have seemingly infinite choice in how they spend their day. And, most often, if the weather is at all cooperating, we spend the bulk of our day outside.

4. We deeply engage in life - including screen time. 

When my kids were younger all their TV viewing was with me. We talked about what we saw and learned. Now this is a habit. I don't have to be watching with them constantly because they come and tell me what they learned or ask questions about something they saw. 

In this way my kids don't conceive of TV as "down time" or "empty learning calories". They see TV as a simple tool. Just like their blocks/bikes/dolls. TV is a tool and they use it about as much as they do other tools (how many hours a day do your kids play kitchen? Would you be worried if it were "too much"?)

They also see me and their Aunt Mandi and Daddy live fully outside of the TV too. We watch TV, we spend time on Facebook. We also spend time in the garden, and kitchen, and painting, and singing, and dancing. We Live. We model for them balanced use of screen and non-screen time. If your kids plop in front of the TV after school ask yourself, "do I plop myself in front of the TV after work?" I don't ask that like it is a character flaw or something to be ashamed of. My point is don't have a double standard. Don't ask your kids to limit their choices in entertainment when you don't limit yours the same way. 

Most importantly: If you want to limit screen time, limit it as a family, consensually, not as a special discrimination against people under the age of 15.

I've previously said that limiting screen time is an important part of unschooling. I don't mean that in the sense of forcing arbitrary limits on kids. I meant that we parents need to limit our screen time so we give our kids an example of a balanced life.

5. I have Advertising Free (or advertising light) screens. 

My view seems dangerously laizze faire to mainstream parents who gauge their parenting "goodness" by how much they limit their kids' choices. However, I am downright militant about commercial free screen time.

My kids have unlimited access to so much digital material and I want them to make those decisions for themselves. In order to do that in a way that doesn't also indoctrinate them into consumer culture, I only have commercial-free programming available. Thank the goddess for Netflix and Amazon Prime! (As a side note I think the adults have benefited greatly from commercial-free TV as well. The only commercial TV we currently watch is The Americans on FX and seeing the sexism and classism used to sell products is startling if you've been away from it for a while.)

My kids recently got obsessed with those YouTube videos where people open tiny toys. You know which ones I mean? Honestly they make me ill. They are so material, ya know? This gave me a great opportunity to talk about consumerism and the desire to collect stuff that is endemic in our culture. 

But what do they do all day?

Right now I'm writing on my laptop. It is cold outside so we are all inside (boo, April in Ohio). The TV in the living room (where I am) is playing Guardians of the Galaxy because I love the soundtrack and like noise in the background. The kids usually run in for the dance scenes (you know the "it's a dance off you big turd blossom") and run back to what they were doing.

Aellyn is watching cat videos on one of our phones. Boston is building a plane with bristle blocks. Asher is combing his new My Little Pony's hair and pretending to give her a bath. 

At about 10AM when I'm fully awake (I'm unashamedly NOT a morning person so even though I get up at 6 I do "screen time" myself until a much more humane hour like 10) I go start dinner, do dishes, take care of the seedlings we are sprouting, and do laundry. I play music while I do this and the kids tend to hover near me. Sometimes they help. Sometimes they play near me. Sometimes they are off building a fort out of pillows or being animal explorers (thanks Wild Kratz!). Often we have awesome conversations about everything from why kitty liter clumps to what happens when we die. 

They decide. There are very little demands on what they can do and when. As a result the ideas of "work" and "play" bleed together and my kids don't crave TV any more than they crave riding their bikes. Both options are equally available and equally valid. Without externally imposed judgments about how they *should* be spending their time they actually balance their activities in a healthy way.

That's really what consensual parenting (sometimes called radical unschooling) is all about. I trust that, if I give them the benefit of my faith in them, my kids will naturally have a life of balance. Humans are animals and they want to thrive. We thrive in balance and when we are out of balance we have dis-ease - mental and physical.