Unplug…your kids and yourself!
April 18, 2011
Screen Free Week, (formally TV Turn off, April 18-24, 2011) is the annual national celebration where children, families, schools, and communities turn off TV, video games, computers, and hand-held devices and turn on life. Instead of relying on screens for entertainment, they play, read, daydream, explore nature, and enjoy spending time with family and friends.
Children spend far too much time with screens: an astonishing average of 32 hours a week for preschoolers and even more for older children. Time with screens is linked to poor school performance, childhood obesity, attention issues and other health and social problems.
Some information to inform your choices of how much screen time is good for children:
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:
• The average child watches 3 hours of TV a day — 2 hours of quality programming is the maximum recommended by the Academy.
• Active play time is needed to develop mental, physical and social skills.
• Children who watch violence on TV are more likely to display aggressive behavior.
• Young children don’t know the difference between programs and commercials.
A thought to ponder~
Geena Davis, an advocate for gender equality in children’s entertainment recently stated in the The WSJ “ A Blueprint for Change” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250900113069980.html “ The more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she believes she has in life. And the more hours a boy watches, the more sexist his views become.”
I hope that your mini vacation from all those gadgets, like the best of vacations, present some different and new habits. A suggestion for a new habit—add the element of TALK with your children about the TV programs or videos etc they watch. Here are some conversation starters.
~ Did you learn anything new?
~ What character would you like to be your friend? Why?
~ Is there a character you dislike?
~ How would “the story” be different if…?
~ What would you do in this situation?
~ What are you curious about at the end of “the story?”
Lets hear it for poetry that is easy, and I do not mean simple, to understand and invites pleasure.
April 15, 2011
In anticipation of April being poetry month I signed up to receive a poem a day, delivered to my email. Anticipating great delight, I quickly, and not so happily, became disenchanted. I have not understood or liked any of the poems until today when I received The Things by Donald Hall. Lets hear it for poetry […]
Children (and adults) benefit from someone handing them a book that speaks to their interests.
April 12, 2011
They say advice is worth what you paid for but here is a lovely story about how a piece of advice played out. Recently I was doing a program and a librarian and mother of two sons lamented how one of her sons is a reluctant reader. I asked her what are his interests and […]
“Poetry is emotion recorded in tranquility.” Wordsworth
April 7, 2011
No surprise that William Wordsworth, (4.7.1770) born in the midst of spring, wrote enduring words about daffodils— one of the happiest flowers I know. I don’t gaze upon them without recalling his words—“Fluttering and dancing in the breeze, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” Choose your own favorite line or two, a “souvenir” from his […]
“Others might tell stories to put you to sleep, but I tell stories to wake you up!”
April 4, 2011
Born April 4, Reb Nachman would be 239 years old today. As a brilliant teacher, and considered to be the first Jewish storyteller, he succeeded in creating stories which will endure forever. Reb Nachman understood the power of stories to transmit a people’s values and way of life and put into practice the adage: Thou […]
