Mr. Roemer's Fifth Grade Class
No TV Week - Tips for Family TV!
  • Don’t use T.V as a baby-sitter. It may seem easier to place children in front of the television regardless of the quality of the show when you are busy, but children build strong family ties from their participation in household chores and shopping.
  • Carefully select the shows your family watches. Be the parent and insist that certain shows are off limits.
  • Set aside a time for “family shows,” programs you watch together.
  • Include children in family decisions about what you will watch together. This shows children their ideas are respected and can set the stage for family meetings to discuss other family projects.
  • Be a model for your child. Choose carefully the programs you watch.
  • Don’t use TV as a reward or punishment. As such, it can become a crutch which places too much value on the medium. Instead, try to think of something more directly tied to your child’s behavior.
  • Join with other parents in your community to press for more and better programs for children and families. Organized viewers do make a difference. You may also want to contact the national advocacy group Action for Children’s Television, 46 Austin St., Newtonville, MA 02160.
  • Use activities like the following to enhance the leaning value of the TV show you watch as a family.
    • Ask your child to exercise his/her imagination and think of another title for the program or series you are watching.
    • Read newspaper articles describing the show before watching it. Have your child write a description or narration of the program after viewing it.
    • During a commercial break ask your child to predict what will happen next.
    • Turn off the volume but leave the picture on. Ask your child to guess what is happening by watching the action without the sound.
    • Have your child draw a picture describing his feelings about a show. Discuss the picture together.
    • Ask your child to time the commercials during a show then add them together.
  • Be as selective with your child’s TV diet as you are with what he or she eats. Just as we are what we eat, to some extent; so too are we what we watch!
By Bernadette Angle, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Youngstown State University, Special Education.