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I grew up watching tv, but somehow managed to grow up and be a normal successful individual However, I would prefer to have grown up enjoying the outside!! My mom used the tv as a babysitter...however, I can live without it now.
We do have three tv's and basic cable. My ds does not have a tv in the room but he does get to watch Noggins, some of the Disney channels, and Animal Planet. He will never get a tv or computer in his room.
He used to like watching a lot of tv, but that seemed to have been a phase. Now, he does not care for it and his days are busy playing and enjoying life!
I was raised with no TV while we lived overseas (most of my growing up years) but when we would visit the USA we had a TV.
If you talk to me about most shows from the 70s or 80s I will have heard of them but won't know anything about them. My DH will tell you all about Dukes of Hazard and Starski and Hutch, but I haven't ever seen an episode of either.
Now we have 3 TVs all hooked up with Directv and Tivo. Sometimes I really wish we didn't have it, but then I would prefer to watch HGTV with no commercials than to have only basic TV and get soaps. So, it is a mixed bag.
I was raised with tv and so are my children. TV in our household was monitored. We did not see thast much tv really. We saw some in the evenings if we did not have homework. We got to see Sat. morning cartoons and that was it. My husband on the otherhand watched tv every waking hour that he could. He'd wake up in the days when tv began at 6 am and stare at the test pattern until it started. We are raising our children with tv, but it is monitored in the amount of time they watch and what they watch. I think that is a good compromise.
I grew up with no TV. My parents didn't want to be tied to it and wanted to teach my brother and I what they wanted to teach. (They are both professors so liked to teach a LOT!! ) Because of this I believe I am much more creative and know what to do during really boring times.
In our household we have....5 TVs . I feel bad that I am not raising my kids the way I was raised. I just love TV so much now!! I can really see the differences between myself and my kids. If I could do it over again (knowing what I know now) I would probably have no TV. It really promotes laziness.
So...could you survive in a TVless house?
5 TV's! Oh my gosh, that is a lot. We have two and I feel that might be one too many for our household. You've implied that your children may be lazy due to the TVs. It's still your house (it's never too late to change your mind as a parent), why don't you give a few to Goodwill and just keep a primary one in the family room?
I grew up with only one, and honestly I think that goes a long way to encouraging you to do other things with your time. My wife grew up with 4 in her house, and worst yet they were all on at all hours due to a single child's compulsion to keep the noise level in the house high. I know that's not healthy and the parents hardly talked with the kids and vice versa while growing up.
Parents need to take control of their households. TV provides only a single direction of information flow - that is from your TV to your brain. Educational programming can be good for children but TV does not facilitate bidirectional sharing of information and establishing critical thought.
You don't even have to be a conspiracy nut to rationalize that with only a handful of parent corporations making all the programming decisions these days for TV that there is a potential sphere of influence issue with that medium as well. I feel strongly about this and perhaps others will chime in and say TV is harmless - but fundamentally the images we see and the sounds we hear make up the majority of our processed sensory input which makes us who we are - why the heck would anyone want to turn over that authority to those few individuals making all the TV programming decisions by propping ourselves in front of a television for hours each day?
We have Four tv's in our house. On ein our bedroom which really is only on for about an hour at night when the boys go to bed. One in the computer room, which is probably turned on once a week if that. One in the living room ; and on ein the den. We are lucky enough that the boys still ask is if they can watch tv, we control (or at least try to) the channel that they are watching and they must tell us what is on. These days one boy only watches baseball and the other only watches reruns of Harry Potter.
We watched some tv - I watched Star Trek probably three days a week, and we had some 'family' shows, mainly the muppets and similar shows - but really not that much. Spent lots of time outdoors, but then again, at that time it was not considered to be that unsafe to be running around in the woods south of Houston as an eight year old.
We have a new baby, and so TV is a subject that has come up. Our intent is no live TV for at least 2 years. We are still trying to come up with a plan for DVDs, etc. Our real problem is not so much with TV itself as the advertising. Advertising is very effective and is directed straight at the children. My sister pretty much eliminated TV from their schedule when they had kids, and the kids have no desire whatsoever to go to McDonalds......
We have 4 tv's in our house. We use to have 5. Are children are 12,8 and 4. We use to have a tv in our living room until last year. It was so bad that when we sat down to have dinner our 3 year old at the time would go turn it on because he was just used to it that way. This was a sign. We took the tv out of our living room a year ago and wow what a difference. We now have dinner and "actually visit". Talk about the day we each had and just have a great family discussion. I could not stress how much change it made in our children. They actually became interested in each other. We asked our children how they felt about the tv being out and they love it. They are happy that we spend more time talking to them and I feel better at night really knowing how my kids are doing from day to day. Before I would go to bed wondering, oh, I forgot to ask my kids how school was.
Tv is ok in moderation. It is a learning tool and can be fun for the family, but just remember, your kids would rather talk to you then watch tv (if you don't find this to be your case, then that is a sign that they are watching tv and that you need more family time).
Location: Monterey Bay, California -- watching the sea lions, whales and otters! :D
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What an interesting topic! I am so pleased to see so many people who are not attached to television! What a nice surprise!
I was raised in "the old days" when there wasn't much on television, and kids mostly played outdoors. When I moved out of my parents' house, I didn't have a television until I was in my late 30s and my dad came to visit me in Colorado and was horrified that I did not have a tv! So, he ran out and got me one!
Later, I again ditched the television, and when I moved to California, I ended up in a mountain town and my dad … again…. went out and got me another television – how could I not have one with a kid? Well, much to his surprise, he discovered that I only received two television channels up there -- and not very clearly. A few years later, there was NO tv reception. Once we moved to our present house, I still didn't have a tv, but I missed seeing the news. So, I finally broke down a few years ago and got cable. We also still don't get cell phone reception -- phew -- so, I have a good excuse for not having one yet!
My daughter loved television, but then when she studied abroad, she got out of the television habit, and now doesn't watch it much. Most of her time is on her computer. I like to watch a few shows like The Iron Chef and Monk and a few things like that. But since she will be going to college soon, I will probably cut the tv off again – I just don't like paying for something that has mostly junk on it, especially when I can just rent a dvd with a movie I'd like to see, or read a good book, or do some art work. I won't cut out the high speed internet, though!
I was raised with TV - but of course, before cable, access was limited. Kids programming was slim. And during the summer, there were no cartoons on during the day - you either watched the soaps (and no one wanted to do that) or the Chicago Cubs.
So lots of outdoor play.
And we only had one TV until I was in HS - and Dad was a "sports aholic" so there was mostly sports on there - which I wouldn't watch.
I personally feel that TV can be educational (discovery channel - animal planet) and children should have limited supervised access to the programming. Kids who don't see any TV at all generally tend to get obsessed and mesmerized by it when they are around a TV.
Too many parents however, use it as a babysitter. Which is not good.
I grew up watching television. I was an only child, and my mom worked all day. I usually put on the tv when I came home from school and it was on until I went to bed. I even did my homework in front of the TV. I was an average student, but I'm sure I could have done better in school, especially if I did not do my homework in front of the tv. We got cable when I was around 10. I grew up watching mtv, and admit that I watched it (sometimes) up until about a year ago. It was kind of a guilty pleasure, but I don't tune in anymore. There is so much crap (for lack of a better word) on mtv and other channels. Not to mention the advertisements. I feel like my brain is on overload with all the noise, people trying to get you to buy some stupid product that you don't need. I still watch tv, but I limit it to morning news, and usually it will not go on at night until about 7 or 8 when I put on a show or two to wind down (usually asleep at 9). I mostly use the DVR to record shows and then fast forward through the commercials. I love that! There are some great educational programs on, so I would not eliminate tv all together. Like everything, moderation is the key. I think about what I would do if I have children. I guess my rule would be no tv until after dinner, and only if homework is finished. No tv in the bedroom for the kid(s). Children today seem more interested in the computers anyway, so I guess I'll have to come up with a whole other set of rules...
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However, I would prefer to have grown up enjoying the outside!! My mom used the tv as a babysitter...however, I can live without it now.
) Because of this I believe I am much more creative and know what to do during really boring times.
. I feel bad that I am not raising my kids the way I was raised. I just love TV so much now!! I can really see the differences between myself and my kids. If I could do it over again (knowing what I know now) I would probably have no TV. It really promotes laziness. 
