How to Wean Your Family From Television

You've just realized that your family spends more time watching TV than they do talking with one another. TV watching is an isolated activity and inhibits family interaction. Weaning your family from TV is an important step in strengthening family relationships and encouraging interaction. With patience and commitment, you may rediscover one another and enriching activities that don't involve TV.

Instructions

1. Set firm boundaries as to when television can be watched. Set a strict amount of time that each person can watch TV per day. Stick to it.

2. No TV at mealtimes. This will encourage family members to interact with one another rather than zoning out in front of the television. This will also have the effect of introducing other skills that don't involve TV, like socialization and communication.

3. Get rid of extra TVs. Reducing the number of TVs to 1 or 2 in the house brings family members together in a common area for TV viewing. It also encourages discussion and negotiation in making choices about what to watch.

4. Disconnect the cable. You'll discover that there is really nothing much to watch on cable either--it just takes you longer to figure it out with 500 cable channels. Cutting off your cable will save you a bunch of money that you can use for other fun activities with the family.

5. Explore opportunities to replace TV. Play games together, read books, talk, go out and play--all of these things will strengthen your family. In a short time, you'll wonder how you ever got anything done with all of that TV watching.

Tips & Warnings

• Stick with it. The first week is always the hardest.

• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against any TV for children under age 2.

• No one ever died from not being allowed to watch television, so don't let your kids use that excuse on you.