we have gotten into the bad habit of having the TV on (YTV, Treehouse, CBC kids, PBS kids) in the morning while we eat breakfast and get ready for school or work. Not that this was ever a good idea, but it made more sense when I was working. It kept the kids busy while Marc and I rushed around and got ready for the day.
This week, we have had some very awful mornings with Noah refusing to go to school and having to practically drag him to the van. On Monday morning I left him outside his classroom lying on the floor. He was just unbelievably resistant and hostile. It happened again on Wednesday. So, I started thinking about ways to make the mornings a little better, and the TV watching just jumped out at me.
Now that I am home, we don't leave the house until 8:30 at the earliest, so if the kids are up at 7, that's an hour and a half of TV before they have even left the house. So, I decided to stop it. I explained to Noah that if we didn't watch TV, we would all have enough time to get ready without being rushed. I also promised him that I would eat breakfast with him and not go on the computer. To my complete shock, Noah agreed to this without any major objections. There were no tears or tantrums.
Today was the first day. and it went really well. We did Noah's home reading which we forgot to do last night. We talked while we had breakfast together. Wow, it felt great!
I think a lot of the time as a parent, I gave a hard time taking something away from the kids even if giving it to them was a bad idea to begin with. I think the reason this worked so well (if you can tell after one day) is that I gave up something as well, and we gave each other the attention we had previously wasted on the TV or the computer.
I'm still a little weirded out by the lack of objections. It's like taking away a chocolate brownie and offering a piece of fruit - and the kid eats the fruit. Weird.
