Deschooling and TV

Parker, Draven & Tina

At Unschooling Basics, Tina Tarbutton shared how TV can fit into life during deschooling:

Draven has some form of electronics playing nearly 24/7. He's either playing on Xbox live, or watching YouTube videos about any number of things or watching TV while playing with something else. Sometimes more than one of those things are happening at the same time (he's often watching YouTube while watching TV). He also falls asleep while watching TV and only sometimes remembers to set the sleep timer. Since he goes to bed long after me, I typically turn it off when I wake up if he seems to be sleeping soundly (otherwise the silence wakes him up).

This developed over time though, we're about two years into unschooling at this point, maybe less. At first when we lifted TV restriction there was lots of what I thought was boredom TV watching, but really it was him trying to get in as much as he could before I replaced the restrictions. There were many hours of very passive "couch potato" type behavior. Now that he's pretty comfortable with the idea that I won't restrict it anymore, he's more comfortable using it as background noise, or as something to get ideas from to further his imaginative play. When TV is playing he's normally standing up in front of his bed setting up some huge battle scene with halo figures.

If I would have constantly tried to redirect his attention away from that passive watching, I think he would have gotten the impression that I was still judging his TV time and TV use, and he wouldn't have had the opportunity to develop his own relationship with that particular medium.

If your kids were instead sitting on the couch passively reading when they were bored, would you have the same reaction? Treat TV the same way you treat anything else, it's just one of many options that they have in the day, provide an exciting environment for them to choose from and then don't judge their choices.

Yesterday I found some cork board and magnetic dry erase board squares on clearance at Walmart. I also found some neat looking notebooks and pencils, also on clearance. We put up the boards in his room and played with the magnets and push pins for awhile. When I went to bed he was playing with action figures and watching TV. This morning when I checked on him he had many drawings and things he'd written up on the cork boards and some designs on the dry erase boards. I'm pretty sure these things happened with the TV on in the background (it was still on this morning). I provided something I thought he'd be interested in, and helped him hang it up, but then I left it, he chose how to use it and when. I feel the same way about TV, I provide the TV and the cable, he chooses how to use it and when. If I try to direct his use of the things I provide he won't have the chance to develop his own relationship with those things. TV included.