Technology

I'm all for technology. Anybody that walked into this house could see that. We own two laptops, two desktops, two PS2s, two VCRS, two stereos, a DVD player, Game Cube, Super Nintendo, Sega, Nomad, Ipod, Palm pilot, and about 500 DVDs. And no that's not an exaggeration, we really own about 500 DVDs, probably more. And our Cell phones, we do not even have a 'land line'.

We have broadband internet with a wireless connection. We have cable with 150 channels. Our computers can play music through the stereo wirelessly. We have a printer in the living room on the network so we can print to it from anywhere. Lets not get started on the other stuff too.

At what point do you draw the line? I'm all for sitting in front of a TV most of the day. Or at least having the TV or Radio on for noise. I've never been a huge TV watcher my self. It's a kick back from child hood. We only had one TV in the house. It was an old 25" floor model my Dad got on the side of the road. It worked nicely but it was old even when he got it. With the big antenna on the top of the house we could get 6 channels. When we made it home from school we where allowed to watch it for about 30 mins. Enough time for 1 cartoon.

Now, I don't want you to think that my parents restricted TV time so we would do our home work or something like that. They didn't. We where allowed 1/2 and hour because we got home at around 2:30 and at 3:00 Mom's soaps came on, and they didn't go off until Dad got home from work. At which point the TV was surrendered to him. By the time my parents split up I was already a teenager and ingrained to not watch it.

The problem is thus. We have cable, 150 channels. Mike, my 6 year old son is too obsessed with it. TV, Video Games, the Computer. It is the center of his life. He wakes me up in the morning, and comes out here to bounce on the couch until I get the TV on. If I don't turn it on with in a minute or two of getting up he starts asking, non stop if he can watch it. Ok, a little obsessive, but that's not too bad. If you turn the TV off and tell him to go find something to play with he'll just sit on the couch and talk to you the whole time the TV is off. Which is cool for the most part. Though it's a waste of his toys.

My biggest problem is what happened today, which is why he is banned from TV for the rest of the day. It around 12:00 I asked him if he was hungry for lunch. He did not eat breakfast because he wasn't hungry. He said, and I quote.

"No, I'm not hungry, I think I'll just sit here and finish watching this."

Fine, what ever, there are days when I'm just not hungry, I've gone a day or two with out eating because I wasn't hungry. If he didn't want lunch I wasn't going to argue, I'd just make him eat dinner. As soon as Jimmy Neutron went to commercial Mike got up and started whining that he was starving because I didn't give him breakfast. I asked him how he could be starving, he wasn't hungry two mins ago. He responded with:

"I am now, the TV show is over, so I have time to eat."

So what do you do? Ban them from TV? Force them to eat? I think perhaps Jen and I need to institute a TV time limit. Maybe 2 hours a day or something. It's just something that has me concerned. Watching TV, or playing video games to the exclusion of all else is unhealthy.

Perhaps we are too technology driven. Maybe we need to 'trim' down some?

Or do we just let him stare at it all day, it is after all summer vacation. Once he starts school it'll be something we can work on?

Anyway, this was a rant or something, I don't know, just felt like posting it. Don't know why.

"Aye, it's done!" - Tomi, Never Winter Nights.