by Maria Rogers

Created on: June 19, 2009

Most definitely, and without a doubt. There is nothing but garbage on television these days anyway. I have three boys, ranging in ages from 25 to 10, and I believe that they have flourished much more from not watching television. All you see now-a-days is death, violence and sex. What kind of examples are those for growing children.

As a general rule, children absorb everything that they see and hear. So why ruin their lives with things that will rot their brains, rather than feed their minds. A healthy child needs to be well rounded in the things that he/she learns.

Several years ago, I decided to experiment with my children's television viewing habits...with their permission, of course. We sat down and discussed what I was trying to do, and they agreed to try the experiment for six months. My two older ones were the ones doing the experiment, as the youngest was too young to participate.

After the six months were up, we sat down to discuss what they had missed the most and the least. Cartoons was first on the list, for what they missed the most. They really didn't miss much of anything else. At that point, I told them that they could go back to watching their television shows, if they wanted to.

To my surprise, they didn't run to the television and turn it on, like they normally would have done when they woke up first thing in the morning on Saturdays. It was good to see that they appreciated the other things that we did, in place of television.

During the six months of no television, we spent a lot of time together; which was very pleasant. We did a lot of reading and went to the library often, to check books out. We created things to do as a family, instead of just running to vegetate in front of the television. My husband enjoyed his time with them very much, and took advantage of every second that they gave him.

They never went back to their old routines, they modified them by spending more time with us and each other. In my opinion, they are much better off for what we started out as an experiment, turned out to be a way of life.

I know that violence, sex, drug use, death and crime are out there in the real world, but why would anyone willingly want to expose their children to that. We're supposed to protect our children from these things for as long as possibly, so they could have a normal, healthy upbringing.

My husband and I have always looked back on that little experiment, as one of the best things we could've done for our children. With any luck, they will try it out with their own children.

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