Thoughts on the presence of Great Glowing Boxes in the lives of children

The presence of TV/handheld video games is not a new thing in the lives of children, but it has become more prevalent in the last decade than it was when I was growing up. Now we have TV in our cars, on airplanes, even in shopping carts(1), in addition to the traditional TV that people have in their living rooms and even in their bedrooms. As Americans increase their screen time with TV, computer, smartphones, and gaming consoles, obesity rates have skyrocketed, dragging kids along for the ride. The constant bombardment doesn't just contribute to a lack of physical activity, but mental activity as well. Kids spend so much time texting that they have apparently forgotten how to use proper grammar in school papers (2). The brain-drain starts young- Baby Einstein and other companies market television shows to infants, and there are dozens of apps available for whatever smartphone platform you might have that also cater to babies and toddlers. Have we, as a society, become so entrenched and addicted to the Great Glowing Box that we've forgotten what it means to entertain ourselves, and let our children entertain themselves? What are we doing to their tender, developing minds?

I am coming to this from a somewhat "unplugged" perspective. Our car does not have a DVD player (nor do we plan to ever own one with a DVD player). We have one TV, which resides in our living room, and we do not have cable. In fact, we only turn on the TV to watch movies a few times a week and to watch football in its season. C and I joined the 21st century this week and got smartphones (and yeah, I did get the MyTouch! SQUEE!). J has only in the last month even gotten to play a game on a smartphone, and I think that's pretty great. I would have liked to keep him naive to them longer, but I don't think we're hurting him by letting him play a few minutes every couple days with his "finger drawing game." He loves to watch me play Angry Birds, and he gets to play on occasion (his screen time for games is 10 minutes per day). At 4 years old, he does not know how to use a computer mouse, so no computer games for him. He does have a Spiderman laptop with spelling/letter games on it, but he doesn't use it much.  As far as TV goes we let him watch movies starting around age 2, and he gets to watch cartoons at daycare once in a while (he only goes 1 day a week, and they rarely watch anything). He and C sometimes watch the Fairly Odd Parents on Netflix streaming, but that's pretty much it. J was occasionally exposed to TV (mostly for Broncos games) as a baby but we never sat him down with the intent that he should watch something. J is allowed to watch one movie per day (during the week), but almost never actually watches one every day. A movie may also only be a couple episodes of Franklin or whatever other show he picked out at the library that week, and generally is about 30-90 minutes. He does not get to watch movies while L is awake in order to minimize her exposure, and his total screen time averages less than 1 hour total per day, versus the national average of THREE (3). I will confess that when I am home alone with him, I am more likely to turn on an episode of Fraggle Rock or Bob the Builder to keep him out of my hair while I am cooking than C is, but since C is the stay-at-home parent in our house, J doesn't get much TV/movies. Our goal is that L will also be minimally exposed to TV, etc until she is two, and then have the same limits that J does.

We did once get a Grocery Cart TV at the store (I didn't have the baby with me, so it was doable, since they have nowhere to strap an infant) (1). It was the worst experience I've ever had in a grocery store. The damn cart not only had *no* power-off button, but I had my very own screen. Yeah. J and I both had screens to watch on the cart, and mine had no volume control. It kept yapping to me about how great it was (and gave me recipes and stuff), and I was disgusted. J enjoyed his cartoons (though it wasn't one he'd seen before, and he was a little confused) but he agreed that it was really not that great and he wished that the button on the steering wheel beeped like a horn like the other car-carts. When we go in now we avoid those carts, and J doesn't mind one bit. He likes the non-computerized ones better, and he comes up with some great scenarios while he's "driving" around and enjoying his free cookie. I know there are some people that enjoy these things, and from one particular blog post it seems that the author doesn't really like actually making sure her child behaves, so she plunks her down in front of the TV so she could enjoy the time without dealing with the bratty kid in a store (5). Granted, I don't know this particular child, but I'm going to guess that she's nothing special in terms of being out of control, and is probably just a normal kid who doesn't know how to entertain herself.

TV in the car is a little bit of a touchy subject. I have family members who swear that having the DVD player has saved them on long, cross-country hauls with kids in tow, hours of nonstop "are we there yet?" and "I have to pee!" and backseat fights. I have held my tongue and quietly wondered what happened to listening to audiobooks, or reading to ourselves, or playing games like "I spy" and "20 questions." I'm sure there were times when my siblings and I poked and prodded each other, but that's all part of growing up and learning to get along. I know that when I was about 11 or so my sister and I made up our own Mad-Libs and my dad told us to stop, because we were being inappropriate with them (heehee). Of course, this was on a 20+ hour trip to Washington from Colorado and I think we'd been getting louder and more obnoxious over the course of a couple hours, but rather than getting really angry, he challenged us to look outside and see if we could find any pronghorns. Thanks to my dad and his love of the outdoors, I have a comprehensive knowledge of various wild ungulates and have seen more than a few while gazing outside (we are trying to teach J about these as well). Landscapes flashing by were always a great way to drift off into my own thoughts, allowing my mind to wander. As an adult, it saddens me a little every time I see cars drive past with a movie on. I often wonder if they are going on a long trip or not. If so, I wonder if they are watching movies for the whole trip or just one a day. If not, are their children so badly behaved that they simply must have a screen in front of them so they will shut up and stop trying to kill each other? Or do the parents just not want to deal with them?

We live about 1 1/2 hours from C's parents, and an hour from C's brother. We visit them all fairly frequently, so longish car trips are not unheard of in our family. We also make an annual trek for the family camping trip, which is anywhere from 2 to 5 hours away. J looks out the window or looks at a book, or takes a nap on these trips. He recently developed a love for podcasts (specifically Aaron's World, which is pretty awesome, and Born to Do Science) so we often listen to those. We also have some CDs for him that aren't grating on the adults in the car. There is simply no need for us to have a TV to keep him entertained. Maybe that's part of the problem- we are looking at our children as "beings that need to be entertained" and not "beings capable of creating their own entertainment." Now that we have two kids, J and L have a grand time making faces and talking to each other and trying to get each other to giggle. They entertain each other, and when L falls asleep, J goes back to looking for cows or clouds shaped like fish or checking to see if he can find any cool trucks. Sometimes he looks at a book or two, and sometimes he naps. He does normal 4-year-old-boy things, too, like ask if we're there yet.

I don't know what all this screen time will do to our children. I think it will cause their reading comprehension to decrease (as has already been shown). I know I feel dumber, more depressed, and less motivated if I spend hours playing games or watching movies rather than reading or being active.  I think the answer is that we, as a culture, need to start looking for ways to teach our children to seek out entertainment, and use their imaginations, rather than just turning on the TV or handing them an iPad or smartphone and viewing them as people who need to be entertained. We have raised our son to love books, and so far his baby sister seems to be just as fascinated with them as he was at her age. Like most parents, C and I do the best we can, and we tend to think that we are doing better than average in raising our children. We get compliments when we are out with our kids based on their behavior, so I like to think that it's not all in my head.

What non-Great Glowing Box activities do you and your children enjoy?

References:


1. Grocery Cart TV (free in my local grocery stores) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5738235
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-09-18-tv-shopping-carts_x.htm


2. http://waltontribune.com/news/article_2f31a528-599a-11e1-ad65-001871e3ce6c.html


3.http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/107/2/423.full
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-parenting/post/aap-reaffirms-no-screen-time-for-young-children-even-though-few-parents-listen/2011/10/18/gIQAZvpkuL_blog.html 


4. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/sleep.gadgets.ipad/index.html?hpt=C1 \

5. http://amandacarroll.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/a-mother-and-childs-dream/

State of the Finger Address

I got my stitches out today. Not bad at all. Only one bled a teeny bit but none of them hurt. My finger is a little bit infected (BOO!) just to prove that no matter how clean you keep it, getting a bit of pumpkin and germs in when you cut it can create infection, so I get to take Keflex. Whee. No biggie, really. I don't mind Keflex at all. Amoxicillin (totally random, but spell check suggests Amontillado as it does not recognize Amoxicillin- hee hee) makes me puke, so I'd rather take just about anything than that. Or sulfa, because I am allergic to that. Did you know that most people with sulfa allergies are also allergic to latex? Interesting, no? I am one of those people. Neato. Or not.

So anyway, I am excited because last night while grocery shopping/picking up my "happy pills" at the pharmacy, I got a coupon for a $20 Target gift card with new prescription at the pharmacy! So J and I get to go shopping for free! YAY!! I am not sure what I'll get yet. I may just be lame and get J some new jammies and me some new long sleeved shirts or something. I feel like I should get C some shoes, but those are way more than $20 so I'm thinking they'll have to wait until we get our Christmas money. We also need some new tupperware containers, as a certain toddler **cough cough J cough cough* has done away with many of the ones we had.

Anyway, in summary: my finger is now stitch free but slightly infected so I get to buy a new Rx and get to go shopping with the $20 gift card that comes with it. Or, to quote one of C's favorite "sayings": So I was pimping some hos and found $20.

Maybe that doesn't exactly work. Hmm.

Adventures in Pumpkin Processing

I prefer fresh pumpkin to canned, any day. I have been baking and processing my own pumpkin since C got his first apartment, so I was about 18 at the time. My first homebaked pie was good, but since then they have only improved. The first time I processed pumpkin, I baked it until the rind came off easily, then mashed it with a potato masher to the best of my ability (neither of us had a blender). Since that first attempt I have refined my technique. The food processor works better than a blender, and draining the pumpkin is a must (it should look about like smoothly mashed potatoes when done- an amusing tie-in to my early attempts!). This year I tried baking the pumpkin in our dutch oven rather than wrapped in foil- for about 1-2 hours at 350 degrees. I am very pleased with the result. Do be sure to let the pumpkin cool before trying to scoop it off the rind (a large metal spoon works great).

I also brine the pumpkin seeds (nothing special, just add a bunch of salt to water and soak them for a few hours) and then bake at 250 degrees for about 1-2 hours. Yum!

As a "special" addition to this year's pumpkin, I added at trip to the ER (ok, Urgent Care, but ER sounds so much more dramatic!) between the pumpkins. Yep, that's right. I was making that first stab into the pumpkin and my hand slipped, and sliced open my pinky. Click here if you want to see a really big, blurry picture of my 4 stitches (taken with my phone, which is why it sucks. No, I still haven't gotten the camera fixed.) I find it pretty hilarious that tinypic suggests purchasing a mug with a picture of my wound on it. C was at work when I did this, and J was napping, and I didn't have a car or the car seat. I did manage to wrap my hand up in an ace bandage with a paper towel to absorb the blood. After a series of progressively calmer phone calls to family members that live in the area and have cars, I eventually called C at work to come home and take me to the ER. My poor stepdad was the first person I spoke to, I started crying halfway into my first sentence! After 2 hours in the ER, plus a few comments about how good I got myself, and compliments on my assessment of the wound (while holding it under the cold water I made sure I could bend my finger and had feeling) and my wrapping job, I got 4 stitches. I get them out on Sunday. Things seem to be healing pretty well, but I did manage to slice through a small nerve so I have a little numb patch on the back of my finger. I've been assured that it will heal and I'll regain feeling. Good times. I did make it to almost 27 years old before I managed to injure myself badly enough to need medical intervention, so that's cool.

Anyway...I made some yummy pumpkin-oatmeal muffins with a little bit of the pumpkin I got done. I'll post the recipe later. The moral of this story? Tena shouldn't be allowed to use knives when C isn't home.

Mystery Plant Identified!!

Remember this weird plant that I called a rabbit plant? (The one in the white pot.)



Well, turns out it's a native of Madagascar (!) and is called the Mother of Thousands. Aptly named, I'd say. Highly toxic, so I will have to make sure that the dogs can't get any of the offspring, but interesting nonetheless. The plant has also grown about 2 feet since I took this picture, and has about a dozen or more babies in the pot with it. I do periodically have to go through and strip all the new babies off the leaves because one pot of these monsters is enough for me, thankyouverymuch.

The Hazards of Batteries

A little girl Elaina Redding died May 21, and I knew nothing about it until just now. She had swallowed a button battery, and even though her parents took her to the hospital and they took it out within about 10 hours of the toddler swallowing it, it was too late. Less than three weeks later, a coughing fit caused her to rupture her damaged esophagus and she bled to death.

The same thing happened to Hazel, but she was lucky. Hazel had the battery in her throat for six days, but she survived.

Please, please keep your batteries, any kind of battery, out of reach of your kids and pets. Lock them up if you have to. Don't put them in small trashcans that are easily raided.

Let's not allow any more senseless deaths from something so preventable darken our world.

Please keep the Redding family in your thoughts and prayers.