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Turn off the DVDs and tune into your kids
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Published: October 9, 2008
Several nights ago I was behind an SUV in a Harris-Teeter parking lot. In the middle row of seats were the outlines of two small heads. In front of each head was a flip-down video screen with an animated show playing. Apparently this parent couldn't be bothered to try to talk to his or her children, or sing to them, or tell jokes. This person decided to let a video do the nurturing during a short car ride. Regrettably, this is too common.
Long trips are a little different. I know it's hard to keep kids entertained. No longer can children kneel in the back seat, making faces at the cars behind them. No more sitting in the floorboard pretending to be flying a space ship. With the vital introduction of child safety seats and laws mandating their use, kids just can't move around a car like they used to.
I have some sympathy for folks who are facing long drives of, say, four or more hours. Watching a video for an hour or less in that case isn't out of line. But for shorter trips, and particularly around town, parents who use DVDs as pacifiers are doing their children a disservice.
I'm sure these parents love their children just as much as I do my own. I suspect that many of them use DVD players out of ignorance, not laziness. But the detriment remains the same. Excessive television watching has been correlated with sleep and behavior problems, and obesity. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, at most, only two hours of quality television for children per day, and none for children under age 2. Yet most kids spend almost four hours each day watching television.
If you're allowing your children to watch television in the car while driving around town or on short trips, please stop. You're depriving yourself and your children of a wonderful opportunity for family conversation time that, with the overscheduled lives many folks lead, is hard to find. Believe me, I know those opportunities sometimes deteriorate into whine-fests. Children (or adults) in foul moods rarely make for scintillating conversationalists. But telling a child to quiet down and watch a DVD is the easy way out.
There are wonderful alternatives to television on any trip. My wife and I will talk with our girls about their day, or where we're going, or places we've already been. Help them learn the art of conversation.
Play car bingo, count cows, or simply see who can find the most out-of-state tags (which can lead to a quick geography lesson, too). Read! And there's nothing wrong with silence. Have your kids use their imaginations for a while.
By foot, horseback, steamship, wagon train or locomotive, parents have taken long trips for centuries without electronic babysitters, and have done very well, all with nothing but the scenery, conversation, song and, if the family was lucky, books. Be creative. But leave the television off in the car.
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