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Both of my parents worked from the time I was 9 years old until I was at least 14 years old. I would jump off of the school bus, come home, make myself a snack and plop down in front of the television. Given just this above description, most people would say that my parents were cruel, they were uncaring, that I was being mistreated, and therefore I wasn't healthy, getting enough exercise, my brain was rotting, etc...but, and this is a big one, I would only watch television for about a half hour until my friends could come out and play and from then on I was out the door being "active" until the sun went down.

So...I think that saying parents should raise their children without television is a wrong statement, rather I think that irresponsible parents should not allow the TELEVISION to raise their children. I know all too many parents, most of them young and inexperienced, who allow the television to give them the relief from their children that they so desperately need. It's easy to sit your child down in front of the TV when you are otherwise occupied, and I don't necessarily think that it is a completely wrong thing to do, if it saves your sanity as a parent.

I think that parents need to focus less on trying to keep television out of their children's lives and more on making sure that the television that is in their children's lives is both fun and educational. There are many wonderful shows out there these days for children all the way from under a year old up to ten plus years old; Baby Einstein, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, Ghostwriter, just to name a few. Parents need to make sure that when they do use the television as an outlet, when they do allow their children to spend some "down time" in front of the box, that they monitor what is being watched.

In addition to this, parents need to limit the amount of time per day that children to anything "sedentary". Children already have hours and hours of homework to do, which will keep them from being active, so allowing them to watch television, play video games and do other sedentary activities the rest of the time will simply leave them inactive and therefore unhealthy. I think that parents need to make sure that their children get at least three or four hours of some sort of physical activity per day, if they can manage this and homework, I don't see any reason why they can't watch a little fun and entertaining television. Take it from me...it won't rot your brain!

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