Intervention: DVD

Andy and I have been conducting an experiment in our house this past week. We took Emma off TV. This is somewhat like a gastric bypass operation for a morbidly obese person but instead of food, we reduced her to one 10 minute window of weather or news/weather (as she calls it) each day. She is fascinated with the weather channel and radar so this is her version of a liquid diet. We started last Saturday morning after a Friday afternoon that almost convinced Andy to schedule a vasectomy. After E was in bed Friday night, I packed up all her DVDs and the mini-DVD player and hid the box. Sat. morning she awoke with her traditional, "I ready to watch a moobie, Mama." Thus, the intervention had begun. I explained to her that we weren't watching movies for a while. I calmly told her how distractable she was when the TV/DVDs were on and how she seemed to have trouble listening. I reasoned that maybe time without TV would do us all some good. Then I braced myself for the neighborhood dogs to join in the caterwauling I expected from her. Strangely, her head did not rotate on her shoulders, nor did pea-soup like material project from her orafices as I expected. She merely asked where the "moobies" were and, upon discovering they were boxed up, promptly asked for "cimanin toast". I was floored. However, last Sat. & Sun. were the best days we'd had with her in a month. She was so pleasant and able to focus - all day long! She still didn't take a nap but what a different girl. Maybe some people's kids can watch TV and not turn into ADHD wannabes but my child was on her way to high doses of Ritalin. Turning the TV/movies off has made such a difference. Partly I think it's that there's not the constant background noise competing for her attention all the time and partly that she has more interaction with us since she's not plunked in front of the TV. We did relent this morning and let her watch Higglytown Heroes. It was amazing. She sat still the entire time and watched the whole show. When it was over and we turned off the TV, it was no big battle. guess some of these child-rearing people really know what they're talking about. Who knew?