Is Your Child Addicted To Watching TV?

Kids

oi-Anwesha

By Anwesha Barari

Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 11:46

If your children are watching more TV then they are supposed to then looking on helplessly won't do. You have to take some proactive steps. It is a general tendency to take television addiction lightly but when it comes to your kids, you can never be too careful. Any kind of addiction is not good for us, especially children because their young minds are very impressionable. On top of that, if the addiction is to something that makes you passive then you need to take stock of the situation.

If you are bothered by your children watching too much TV then use these tips to wean them from television.

How To Prevent Children From Watching TV?

• It is parents themselves who cultivate this addiction in kids. When the kids are younger, they bribe them with more television time. As working parents these days do not have time for fussy toddlers they use television as a bait to feed the child.

• Banish television from your dinner time. The dinner table is a place where people should discuss their day, it is a family bonding time. There is no reason that the idiot box should be blaring away in the background.

• Shift the television from the living room to your bedroom. This has two advantages; firstly your children cannot be watching television at all times of the day and secondly, you get to monitor what they are watching.

• Violence on television impacts children in a very negative way. You need to keep a tab on what they are watching if you do not want your children to learn violence from television. Block certain channels with a child lock if you deem it unsuitable.

• Your child's bedroom must never have a television. Some parents think it to be fashionable and a display of affluence but the television addiction resulting from it will ruin your child academically and also mentally.

• Television makes the child passive and thus the child will slowly become reluctant to play in the open. Why run when there is a ready source of entertainment at home and you don't even have to use your brain for it?

• If your child's television addiction has taken serious proportions then you need to divert his or her mind from television. Make them join a club or play a sport. If they are not interested in athletics then a music, dance or art class can be a productive hobby.

• Sometimes parents push their child into doom by encouraging the habit of watching television. They come home tired from work and need their privacy so they allow the child to watch TV as long they are not disturbed. If you want to enjoy your social life or privacy then hire a baby sitter as TV is not the ready solution.

Use these parenting tips to stop your children from watching too much TV.