Thursday, April 21, 2005

Active versus passive living

Luke's April 18th blog entry on "No TV" brought back a lot of memories.... we did in actual fact have a TV when the kids were small - we bought a miniscule black and white TV in order to make the neighbors take back their TV. But we only watched one program a week - Sesame Street. When we moved to Ajigasawa and started the church we bought a larger TV - but no antenna - and a video machine. We watched only one movie a week (although we might watch that one movie a number of times) and on Sunday night we discussed it in depth.

Watching Sesame Street

It didn't really have so much to do with bad programming - we've watched a number of not so very good movies in our time - but rather with living our own lives.

We wanted our children to actively THINK about everything they saw and heard - not just passively take it all in. We wanted them to get up off their fannies and go do their own living instead of sitting and watching the world go by!

We also wanted them to have an attention span longer than most the children we knew, so other rules were: if you are watching, then watch; if you start watching you watch it to the bitter end; never watch alone; discuss, discuss, discuss.

4 comments:

Luke and Yuko ELLIOT said...

I had almost forgotten about watching Seseme Street. Probably because I hate it so much, now :) I don't remember the rules so well, either, but now that I see them again they are very good ones!

Laurie Elliot said...

Yes, I grew rather dissillusioned with Sesame Street after awhile. It seemed to me that it was fostering a short attention span - you know how your Dad complains about Sesame Street style news reports!

The "rules" were more for your father and me to use in making decisions - we didn't always tell them to you in so many words... although I think Mary had a pretty clear grasp of them - she used them when she was babysitting a few years ago.

Anonymous said...

i live in eastford too

Laurie Elliot said...

Its a pity you didn't sign your name - I'm really curious about anyone from Eastford!