Earning Screen Time

This post is unabashedly swiped--with permission, of course--from my friend Pam's blog.  The original post appeared on her blog exactly as it appears below.  This idea should be shared far and wide, I think, and I wish I'd had it eons ago!  We have had pretty much the same policies in our home, but without the signed contract, so the onus was on me to check every single time a request was made (or to remember to ask about every single thing, every single time a request for screen time was made).  This led to much more relational tension than necessary over every request and every infraction...and a lot of "flying under the radar" with screen time infractions that were a little too "gray" to catch every time. (I'm talking about you, Google searches--and YouTube viewings--during study time!)  Such a brilliant plan!  My friend Pam and her husband do most parenting things really, really well, and I just wish we were coming along behind them instead of their coming along behind us!  Such wisdom to glean from!  Here's her post:
 
During this month’s Moms’ Support Night for the homeschooling group of which I’m a part (Shout out to Homesteaders Homeschoolers! Woo hoo!), a few of us shared Top 10 Tips for organization and management of our own home schools.  One of the tips I shared was our family’s use of an “Earning Screen Time” contract.  For us, “screen time” involves any non-school/non-educational activities including TV shows, movies, games, televised sports events, videos, SportsCenter highlight clips on YouTube (which are extremely popular in our home!), etc. on any electronic screen such as iPad, iPod, DS, TV, laptop, or cell phone.  In order to earn one hour of screen time each day, our children must complete eight tasks, as listed on the contract.  Additionally, the contract delineates “infractions” that would lead to losing the very privilege of earning screen time — and we are sure to let our children know that it is a privilege indeed.  The happy results include more completed school work, more consistent quiet times with the Lord, neater bedrooms, and an overall cleaner house!
At the beginning of each school year, we update our contract, print it out on brightly colored (i.e., easily recognizable and grab-able in the event that we must point out an “infraction”), and have our children agree to it and sign it. I guess technically they could refuse to sign it and not ever earn screen time, but that is highly unlikely with our brood.  Once the contracts are signed, I place them in plastic page protectors and hang them prominently on our school room’s white board so they are super handy — just in case!

A few Homesteaders moms asked if I would share the contract, and, of course, I’m delighted to do so. So here it is!  It appears below, or you may use this Word document which would allow you to make changes as appropriate for your own family: Earning Screen Time 2013  I wish you much success with it. But please just promise not to tell your kids that I gave you the idea! :)

Uplifting Stories

I discovered this blog site today, featuring an Uplifting Stories section and an Uplifting Person of the Day video segment.  I might like to find this UPtv site again sometime!

"How to Raise Boys Who Read"

This morning, I finally got around to reading an Op-Ed article from the Wall Street Journal entitled "How to Raise Boys Who Read," (subtitled "Hint: Not with gross-out books and video game bribes").  It mentions the popular but failing philosophy in many homes and schools today--just get them reading something, even if it is silly, gross, absurd, and banal--because  their tastes will eventually mature.  Ridiculous.  No young (or older) boy (or girl, for that matter) develops the attention, focus, persistence, and hard work necessary to read something other than mindless drivel--full of short, choppy sentences and crass humor--if he has not been fed a steady diet of challenging, high-quality children's literature.  And no book like that can compete with video games.  TV.  The Internet.

As the famous saying goes, "The secret is, that there is no damn secret."

It is a fantastic, thought-provoking article.  I would highly recommend that you read it in its entirety.  And it occurs to me that articles posted online are often

removed, leaving the article unavailable for reading later on.  So, actually, here it is:

Published in the Wall-Street Journal Opinion Journal
September 24, 2010

How to Raise Boys Who Read

Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes.

By Thomas Spence

When I was a young boy, America's elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can't read.

According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, for example, substantially more boys than girls score below the proficiency level on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. This disparity goes back to 1992, and in some states the percentage of boys proficient in reading is now more than ten points below that of girls. The male-female reading gap is found in every socio-economic and ethnic category, including the children of white, college-educated parents.

The good news is that influential people have noticed this problem. The bad news is that many of them have perfectly awful ideas for solving it.

Everyone agrees that if boys don't read well, it's because they don't read enough. But why don't they read? A considerable number of teachers and librarians believe that boys are simply bored by the "stuffy" literature they encounter in school. According to a revealing Associated Press story in July these experts insist that we must "meet them where they are"—that is, pander to boys' untutored tastes.

For elementary- and middle-school boys, that means "books that exploit [their] love of bodily functions and gross-out humor." AP reported that one school librarian treats her pupils to "grossology" parties. "Just get 'em reading," she counsels cheerily. "Worry about what they're reading later."

Not with 'gross-out' books and video-game bribes.

There certainly is no shortage of publishers ready to meet boys where they are. Scholastic has profitably catered to the gross-out market for years with its "Goosebumps" and "Captain Underpants" series. Its latest bestsellers are the "Butt Books," a series that began with "The Day My Butt Went Psycho."

The more venerable houses are just as willing to aim low. Penguin, which once used the slogan, "the library of every educated person," has its own "Gross Out" line for boys, including such new classics as "Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger."

Workman Publishing made its name telling women "What to Expect When You're Expecting." How many of them expected they'd be buying "Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" a few years later from the same publisher? Even a self-published author like Raymond Bean—nom de plume of the fourth-grade teacher who wrote "SweetFarts"—can make it big in this genre. His flatulence-themed opus hit no. 3 in children's humor on Amazon. The sequel debuts this fall.

Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised "so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education."

"Plato before him," writes C. S. Lewis, "had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful."

This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are.

One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn't go very far.

The other problem is that pandering doesn't address the real reason boys won't read. My own experience with six sons is that even the squirmiest boy does not require lurid or vulgar material to sustain his interest in a book.

So why won't boys read? The AP story drops a clue when it describes the efforts of one frustrated couple with their 13-year-old unlettered son: "They've tried bribing him with new video games." Good grief.

The appearance of the boy-girl literacy gap happens to coincide with the proliferation of video games and other electronic forms of entertainment over the last decade or two. Boys spend far more time "plugged in" than girls do. Could the reading gap have more to do with competition for boys' attention than with their supposed inability to focus on anything other than outhouse humor?

Dr. Robert Weis, a psychology professor at Denison University, confirmed this suspicion in a randomized controlled trial of the effect of video games on academic ability. Boys with video games at home, he found, spend more time playing them than reading, and their academic performance suffers substantially. Hard to believe, isn't it, but Science has spoken.

The secret to raising boys who read, I submit, is pretty simple—keep electronic media, especially video games and recreational Internet, under control (that is to say, almost completely absent). Then fill your shelves with good books.

People who think that a book—even R.L. Stine's grossest masterpiece—can compete with the powerful stimulation of an electronic screen are kidding themselves. But on the level playing field of a quiet den or bedroom, a good book like "Treasure Island" will hold a boy's attention quite as well as "Zombie Butts from Uranus." Who knows—a boy deprived of electronic stimulation might even become desperate enough to read Jane Austen.

Most importantly, a boy raised on great literature is more likely to grow up to think, to speak, and to write like a civilized man. Whom would you prefer to have shaped the boyhood imagination of your daughter's husband—Raymond Bean or Robert Louis Stevenson?

I offer a final piece of evidence that is perhaps unanswerable: There is no literacy gap between home-schooled boys and girls. How many of these families, do you suppose, have thrown grossology parties?

Handling Facebook

Well, this post started out as a "comment" to a friend's Facebook post, but it was just getting way too long and philosophical for that venue, so I've moved it here.  It was in response to her announcement that she was taking a three-month break from Facebook, starting tomorrow, because she's been "convicted about being addicted to Facebook and the fact that it's becoming an idol in (her) life."  If this post seems a little like I'm talking to you directly, it is because I am writing with a desire to address this particular friend and her struggle.  (It is also particularly timely, in that I have just recently--reluctantly--allowed my 14-year-old son get his own Facebook account.  I am always seeking to help both him and his 16-year-old sister to navigate this world of electronic communication and social networking with responsibility and wisdom.)

First of all, far be it from me to ever step in the path of someone who is genuinely feeling convicted about the need to cease something, and then try to talk them into continuing it!  So, if you are truly feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit in some arena (including this one), and the Lord is telling you that it is time for you to stop doing something (even if it is something permissible and fine, biblically), then you should stop doing it.  Period.

BUT, [as Pee-wee Herman used to say, "Everybody's got a big 'but'..."], if you are just feeling godly disappointment in the fact that Facebook (or watching television, or playing video games, or surfing the web, or one of any number of other potentially addictive things of this nature) has somehow come to take up too much of your time and affections--and you don't quite know how to get a handle it or what to do about it, so you're just quitting cold turkey out of desperation--then I offer the following thoughts.

(And know that I do so very reluctantly, because I do agree that our spending time with machines instead of with people--and, even more significantly, with the Lord--is a major problem facing all of us alive today.  Most all of us could use less "electronics times" than we currently allow ourselves!  [See this post for my thoughts--and some sobering statistics--about this problem.]  That said, however...)

It is a fact--and I am accepting this reluctantly, I might add--that social networking sites like Facebook (and texting, which--grrrr---isn't free!) are the primary ways in which younger generations are communicating these days.  I'm not sure how or when we got to the place where calling on a cell phone (let alone a landline!) or sending an email (let alone postal mail!) were passé forms of keeping in touch, but we're there. Of course they're still in use, but they are not the primary way that Generation Y keeps in touch.  Younger folks don't know how to "do relationship" in deep, meaningful, face-to-face ways, until they encounter it and learn it from some folks who have already learned it, committed to it, and shared it.  I have young friends who tell me that their peers are upset with them if they call rather than text to invite them somewhere--their friends don't want to have to respond to the invitation "live" on the phone (let alone in person!).  Is this resulting in people who don't know how to do relationship very well?  Absolutely!  But that is where we are, and we have to learn to make concerted efforts to join with the trend in redemptive ways. 

So, if your Facebook habits and affections have gotten out of proportion to what constitutes healthy time management--or if you just want to ensure that they never do--perhaps some self-control parameters are in order.  You can take it or leave it, or modify it to suit your life, but here's what I do to keep it--Facebook specifically--manageable in my life.

First of all, if spending too much time in chat has been--or you think it will be--a problem for you, turn it off.  Under options, "go offline."  This will keep you from getting sucked into conversations with people who are just killing time when you don't have time to kill.  If they really want to talk to you, they'll contact you some other way.

Second, if gaming has been a problem for you--or if you fear it might become one--turn it off.  I never got caught up in Facebook gaming, but--if the notifications I read when I'm in Facebook are any indication--many a friend has gotten very caught up in Farmville and Mafia Wars and the like!  If this has become problematic for you, time-wise, turn it off, or at least turn off notifications about the game, which will keep you from being forced into dealing with it unless you've specifically chosen to get online in order to play Facebook games for a few minutes.  Then you can deal with whatever has transpired since your last time playing.

After those two basic things have been taken care of--really only helpful if chatting and gaming, specifically, have been problems for you--then you get to the main strategies for handling Facebook time management.  First, be sure you're signed up to receive notifications of all Facebook activity and correspondence at your email account.  Then, choose only to get on Facebook when you get notice of something.  This takes away the obsessive feeling that sometimes develops--like you have to "know everything" and "keep up with all the news" about everyone--by keeping you off of Facebook most of the time.  Being on there a lot is what feeds the need to be on there even more... that itching feeling you develop to "check and see what's happening" with everyone.  (Young people especially--by which I mean anyone between the ages of about 12 to 35--seem to have a major problem with this aspect of things: the constant need for the moment-by-moment notifications that beep on their smartphones...)

Next, when you get there--and remember, you've only gotten onto Facebook because you've gotten an email notification about something needing your attention--then allow yourself to read one page of "top news" (the page you landed on) and one page of "most recent" posts.  Don't allow yourself to click to "older posts" in either venue.  Yes, you will "miss" a lot of things--I have missed finding out that a distant friend had a baby until the kid was like two or something!--but most of the important things will get through. That takes less than one minute to accomplish, and it is a built-in time limit.

After you do that, quickly handle whatever situation it was that brought you to Facebook in the first place.  Reply to the note, answer the friend request, look at the tagged photo--whatever thing it was you received the email notification about--and then get off.  You've already read your two allowable pages of notices and updates.  You're done.  You will have spent less than five minutes doing all of this.  Now get on with life.

For the other stuff--if you choose to allow yourself to go beyond the above parameters--impose "limits" like you will likely one day have to do with your kids.  For example, "I will spend only XX minutes a day browsing Facebook."  (You decide what's reasonable.  For my kids who have Facebook, it is 20 minutes--and only if all their work and chores are done first!)  A word to the wise: set a timer for this, or you'll lose track of time!  And the timer keeps it deliberate.  When you cross out of the limiting parameters stated above, only do so with full intention, and with the accountability of your timer.)  Another option: "I will only allow Facebook on weekends," and only for a certain amount of predetermined time.  (For our family, this is never more than an hour, and we're not like clockwork with it, either!)

Of course, you know yourself, so if you're really having trouble with it, and it isn't edifying in any way, by all means--just like anything else in your life like this--stop it!  [We don't watch TV for these reasons.]

But I am struck by the fact that in just the last week, my friend who is considering quitting Facebook would have missed the blessing of receiving the gift of a camera if she hadn't had it.  (And it is interesting to note that the friend who had discovered her lack of one--and was blessed to be able to give her this gift--found out about the need on Facebook, even while living within the above-mentioned limiting parameters and restrictions regarding its use.)

When I got on Facebook this morning, in response to a notification that I'd been tagged in a photo, I read my one page of "top news."  On it, I saw a quick comment from this friend who is considering quitting Facebook, on the Wall of a mutual friend who is in the hospital, that she was praying for her.  If she hadn't had Facebook, she wouldn't have known of our friend's hospitalization, and she would not have been praying.    [Of course, I recognize the fact that--using these parameters I've suggested--any of us might not have found out about x, y, or z on any given day.  That's okay.  We are not going to be able to know about everything that happens in the lives of hundreds of people, and still manage our own!!]

My suggestion in this regard: pray about it.  Yes, pray about Facebook!  And I don't just mean about the decisions regarding the parameters you'll put in place for its use, either.  I mean about each individual Facebook experience.

Before you get on--for anything outside the first parameters mentioned above, such as browsing around status updates using the "time limit" approach--pray that the Lord would bless your time there, and that He would use it to bless you and others in relationship.  He will lead you to the things you need to see, and it can be a rich time, relationally.

This practice of mine is similar to the practice of the "yard sale prayer list," which I've employed for many years now.  When we really need/want something, but it is just too expensive to go out and buy, I will mentally put it on my "yard sale prayer list" and ask the Lord to provide it in some other way.  I have literally furnished our home, clothed my family, and provided for our life in this way.  He ALWAYS provides the things I pray for in this way in some astonishing, very-cheap-to-free sort of ways: sometimes someone gives it to us; sometimes I find it at a yard sale, or a thrift store, or an amazing retail sale.

At any rate, He can do the same for your Facebook time, if you will take it to Him.  I ask Him to--and firmly believe that He does--lead me to just the things I need to see and know about on Facebook, whenever I go on.  I also ask Him to keep me from the things I shouldn't know about, things that might negatively affect my opinion of someone or lead me to some unfair conclusions about them.  And He directs me in how--and when, and if--to respond with my time in relationship with the things I find there.

So, if you can bring yourself to exercise self-discipline in its use, I do believe that Facebook can be a wonderful tool the Lord uses to bless you, and to bless others through you.  Like most things, however, it can also be a strangling noose around your spiritual neck--if not properly controlled and curtailed--and so I pray for great wisdom and discernment for you (as I do for myself and for my children) as you follow the Lord's leading in its use.

Unplugged

It is Friday, and that means it is the day that my friend Chris comes to help us with our "clean sweep." (See my previous post for more information about that.)

Basically, this means I don't have much time for Blogging this morning... but I figured I'd share a tip I read in this month's issue of Real Simple magazine. (This subscription was also a suggestion from my friend Chris, as she's found this magazine full of wonderful tips for keeping life streamlined, efficient, and free, while still taking thought for beautiful. I like it.)

At any rate, this month they were speaking of ways to make the most of family time in this crazy busy, electronic world of ours. One woman's suggestion? She and her family take one weekend a month and go "unplugged."

They make no social engagements. They watch no television, play no video games, skip the movies. They spend the time deliberately doing all those wonderful things that get lost in the normal busy-ness of life, even on weekends... they go outside to play together. They go hiking. Swimming. Boating. Fishing. They pull out the board games. Card games. Puzzles. They cook and eat together. They grill out. They play croquet. Badminton. Spontaneous kickball with the neighbors. They garden. They plant flowers. They take a bike ride together.

Anyway, you get the picture. To me, the idea sounds wonderful.

And - get this - when we went to plan it, we found only ONE option left - during the next two months - where the weekend was not already full of other plans and obligations!

So, we'll see how it goes. It sounds really wonderful to me.

Turning off the dumb Wii...

I have kids on vacation who have no schoolwork to do and have already completed their "life grids" for today. Does this mean they're curled up reading a book? Listening to Christmas carols? Walking their new dog? Baking Christmas cookies? Playing a board game?

Nope... they're playing on the Wii the dumbest game I've ever seen.

"Well, at least they're spending some time together," you might suggest. Nope again, unless you count fighting as time spent together. It is a one-person game they're playing, and the best you can do is sit around and watch, bossing your sibling around while she tries to take her turn.

I think the ol' Grandpa had the right idea!

Christmas Eve, Unplugged

'Twas the night before Christmas and out on the ranch
The pond was froze over and so was the branch.
The snow was piled up belly-deep to a mule.
The kids were all home on vacation from school.
And happier young folks you never did see
Just all sprawled around a-watchin' TV .
Then suddenly, some time around 8 o'clock,
There came a surprise that gave them a shock!
The power went off, the TV went dead!
When Grandpa came in from out in the shed
With an armload of wood, the house was all dark.
"Just what I expected," they heard him remark.
"Them power line wires must be down from the snow.
Seems sorter like times on the ranch long ago."

"I'll hunt up some candles," said Mom. "With their light,
And the fireplace, I reckon we'll make out all right."
The teen-agers all seemed enveloped in gloom.
Then Grandpa came back from a trip to his room,
Uncased his old fiddle and started to play
That old Christmas song about bells on a sleigh.
Mom started to sing, and first thing they knew
Both Pop and the kids were all singing it, too.
They sang Christmas carols, they sang "Holy Night,"
Their eyes all a-shine in the ruddy firelight.
They played some charades Mom recalled from her youth,
And Pop read a passage from God's Book of Truth.
They stayed up till midnight - and, would you believe,
The youngsters agreed 'twas a fine Christmas Eve.
Grandpa rose early, some time before dawn;
And when the kids wakened, the power was on.
"The power company sure got the line repaired quick,"
Said Grandpa - and no one suspected his trick.
Last night, for the sake of some old-fashioned fun,
He had pulled the main switch - the old Son-of-a-Gun!

Our Children Are Watching

Recently, the Parents Television Council has published a study entitled "Women in Peril." Basically, what they have found is that TV storylines depicting violence against women have increased 120% since 2004, while other violent crime on TV has increased by only 2%.

While the study found a significant increase in all forms of female victimization storylines, they found a 400% increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims; further, they found an 81% increase in incidences of intimate partner violence on television.

The PTC has made a video compilation from a variety of shows, both comic and dramatic, that depict some of this violence. WARNING: It is shocking and disturbing and, in some cases, revolting. If you are usually careful and selective with the types of media entertainment you allow yourself to watch, you likely have not seen anything like this in a long time, if ever. You might not wish to fill your mind with these sorts of images.

On the other hand, if you are a Christian adult, and especially a parent, who regularly watches television programming, perhaps seeing them all together like this will serve as a wake up call as to the seriousness of the issue at hand. These shows are not ones I've watched, but the titles are very familiar to me since they are the "popular" shows of our day... ones that many of my friends and acquaintances have indicated that they watch regularly: C.S.I.; Desperate Housewives; Grey's Anatomy; Criminal Minds; Family Guy; American Dad.

If you are a child (and especially if you are my child), do not watch this video compilation of these clips. It is perverse and ugly stuff.

I am cringing at the idea that many, many American children are regularly watching these kinds of violent depictions. My six-year old neighbor has cable television in her bedroom, and watches whatever she wants to at whatever hour of the day or night. I'm sure she's not alone, as statistics show that many children have televisions in their bedrooms. One study found that nearly 3 out of 4 black (70%) and Hispanic (74%) children between the ages of 2 and 13, and close to 1 in 4 white children (22%) of the same age, have free access to a television in their bedroom. Another found that 41% of five-year olds have their own private bedtime television in their room!

What are they watching?! What are we doing? This study only began to scratch the surface of the garbage we're putting out on the primetime airwaves of every major television network* in America. It did not analyze for depictions of graphic sexual content; it did not keep track of television incidences of profanity. or nudity. or risk behaviors. or self-mutilation. or alcohol abuse. or drug use. or suicide. It did not chronicle television incidences of deviant sexual behaviors like group intercourse, homosexuality, incest, multiple partners, and sexual behavior with near-strangers.

Check out the Family Guide to Prime Time Television, where you can look up any television show and see how it rates on an evaluation of its family-friendly nature with regards to sex, language, and violence. We owe it to ourselves and our children not to let ourselves be "lobsters in the pot of cold water" as the networks turn up the heat!

* Networks included in the study were ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Every network but ABC demonstrated a significant increase in the number of storylines that included violence against women between 2004 and 2009. (CW and MyNetworkTV were not included in the study since they did not exist in 2004.)

Joey the Squirrel

When my son was about two years old or so, he announced - while looking out our backyard window - "Look, Dad! A kangaroo!"




He was a victim of our practices regarding television, I suppose, and had therefore only ever seen still-life or artistic renderings of the animals in question.


Granted, if he had been glued to Animal Planet all day, he might never have made this mistake. But he also would likely never have become the unbelievably learned, prolific reader he is today.







Thankfully, the young people of Hampton Roads will now have the chance to see the difference for themselves - live - at our local zoo.

Why I Don't Do TV...

I just read John Piper's article Why I Don't Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies, which arrived in my inbox this evening.

He is, as always, bold and direct:

... I suspect that Mark and I would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually-explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. "Don’t waste your life" is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television...

Thought-provoking stuff.

Although we do love a good movie (especially as a springboard for great follow-up conversation, which is the way I like to do it), we also avoid the kinds of sexual content he refers to... and we haven't watched television for ten or fifteen years now.

I can't remember exactly when we stopped, but it was somewhere around the time that we realized (1) we were rather irresponsibly addicted (we would pass on invitations and miss opportunities for fellowship in order to stay home and watch the shows), (2) it was taking an awful lot of our time - one night turned to two, as Thursday night's line-up got split onto Tuesday as well... if you're as old as I am, you likely remember the shows... Mad About You, Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, ER... (3) we started having kids, and really needed the sleep, (4) sitcoms went from fun, isolated, individual shows-you-could-take-or-leave on a given week, and took on all the drama and obsessive nature of daytime soap operas (which I'd had the sense to avoid like the plague since I'd realized their addictive power over me when I was in high school and my first year of college... but here I was again, spending way too much time wondering about things like whether Ross and Rachel would ever "get together"), (5) the cute, fun shows we were filling our brains with every week were turning more and more perverse as time went on (illicit sex, crass and crude humor, attempts to normalize homosexuality with likeable homosexual characters and "loving homosexual marriages"...)

I could go on, but you get the picture. I'm sure I would die at what is on television these days, if I ever actually watched it. Occasionally someone will be staying at our home, or we will be staying somewhere else, and those other folks will have made a choice to turn on some television show. It is always shocking and appalling to me what parades across the screen... obviously people have become de-sensitized to what filth is present in just about every single television show they choose to watch.

We know this makes us rather freakish in most peoples' eyes... most people watch a lot of television...

And no, we don't have a hard time staying "culturally-relevant" by knowing "what's out there," because most of the time, that's a major part of what people want to talk about... I've learned all about peoples' obsession with particular shows over the years second-hand, by overhearing about them in conversations. (This is how I found out about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire... Survivor... Lost... American Idol... Sex in the City... 24... Desperate Housewives... and the "cleaner and more wholesome" shows -not always, mind you - which folks watch, too, like What Not to Wear, or Jon and Kate Plus 8, or American Idol.)

Just the other night, my own mother spent about fifteen minutes at our dinner table discussing - in front of my daughter - the "hilarious" show she had watched the night before. I had never heard of it (of course), but she described in blow-by-blow detail the go-out-and-get-laid antics of some group of four nerdy guys... from one's going back into the house to take off his cartoon underwear in case he "got lucky" to a description of one's waking up in the arms of some fat stranger he'd just casually slept with... I sat silently and uncomfortably until, mercifully, my father called my daughter into the other room, and I was able to excuse myself to clear dishes. No disrespect meant to my mother, but she is a prime example of how desensitized we have become... I am grieved by what most folks are regularly filling their minds with.

And I happen to believe it is part of the grand political agenda... shaping public thought through nightly television shows... Hollywood films... pop culture... public education...

How about you?

Having a "Case Number"

So, here's what I did about it...

It will accomplish nothing but make me feel better, I'm sure, so I'm not one of those "good people who do nothing" from the Edmund Burke quotation. ("All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.")

February 4, 2009

To whom it may concern:

I am disappointed and angry about the sexually-explicit commercials that aired during the Super Bowl.

We were hosting a family-friendly Super Bowl party in our home, and a roomful of children and adults were shocked and embarrassed to see the scantily-clad women you chose to air during this broadcast.

There is enough raunchy stuff on TV. Please keep it away from the eyes and minds of young children enjoying "the biggest football game of the year" with their parents.

Dear Consumer,

Thank you for contacting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is an automated message to confirm that we have received your correspondence. We will review your information to determine how we can best serve you.

If you need to send additional information, you may reply back with this email, leaving the case number in the subject line, or contact us at our toll free phone number 1-888-Call-FCC (1-888-225-5322) and reference the case number.

The Federal Communications Commission

Keeping the Clicker Close!

Well, it is certainly interesting to me that this prolife commercial was deemed inappropriate for airing during the Super Bowl we watched last night, while all the half-naked women parading around were deemed just fine.

It sure made for an interesting family-centered Super Bowl party...

Hacking My Brain

I read this article this morning, entitled 15 Ways to Hack Your Brain, and I was happy to learn a few tricks of the trade I didn't know already regarding "brain boosting" and such.

This is feeling particularly crucial after all the "time off" from the normal routine this past week... especially with the heavy holiday eating, the disrupted sleep, and the extra excitement of houseguests.

My brain was feeling foggy and slow to jump on board with the weekly routine this morning...

Backgound Noise?

A friend sent me the following article regarding television and its effects on child development... only this time it isn't necessarily anything the child is watching, but just the fact that the television is on in the background that is potentially problematic.

I found it interesting to ponder, as we consider - as parents -whether the benefits ever outweigh the costs when it comes to the television programming which many have playing in the backgrounds of their lives.

You know where I tend to lean from my post back in June, but anyway, here is the article:

The Effects of Background TV on Toddler Development

Playing is essential to children's development all through childhood but especially in the first five years of life. Through play, children acquire motor skills, explore the physical characteristics of objects, learn about cause and effect relationships, and problem solve. Focused attention to play is necessary for these benefits to occur. A new study explores whether playing with television on in the background—an increasingly common phenomenon in U.S. households—can affect children's development.

At Children's Hospital in Boston, 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds were observed for an hour in a playroom with a television. Half the children had the TV on for the first 30 minutes, and the other half had it on for the final 30 minutes. The program Jeopardy was selected to be on during playtime because it contains no material that is relevant to young children as well as nothing objectionable. Also, children this age could not comprehend what was going on in this show, making this a pure background factor.

Parents were present in the playroom with their children but were instructed to read or watch television. They were asked not to interact with the child nor encourage play with anything unless the child became cranky or demanded their attention.

Children were videotaped during this hour and investigators later observed and analyzed the playtime behavior. The researchers found that there was less play overall, shorter play episodes, and shorter bouts of focused attention when the television was on. Children were more likely to move from toy to toy rather than focusing on one toy, for example, when the TV was on. (Child Development, vol. 79, no. 4 [Jul/Aug 2008]: 1137-1151)

Comment, by Loraine Stern, M.D.: Children's attention spans increase as they get older. The ability to sustain attention and play uninterruptedly for as long as a child's age permits is essential for children to follow through an idea or an investigation. So this new research couldn't be more timely and relevant, given that approximately 75 percent of U.S. parents of young children report that they leave the TV on at least half the time that children are playing at home.

If TV is a significant disrupter of children's attention, does background television contribute to later attention issues as well as impairing development in this age group? This study does not answer either of those questions. We do know that chaotic and noisy households are associated with those problems, so it stands to reason that the noise and rapidly changing light that distracts young children might have a long-term effect.

Another problem with leaving the TV on is that children can be exposed to material that is inappropriate or even harmful—violent images, sexual content, etc. In my practice I ask parents about television use and persuade them to turn it off if nobody is watching. Soft music from the radio or a CD player is hugely preferable if you need some accompaniment to your daily activities.

Susannah Wesley's Apron, Updated

A friend's Facebook status today: "A.H. would love some tips from other moms at my stage in life about how to maintain a realistic devotional time. ALL suggestions welcome!!!"

I figured the easiest place to give my two cents' worth (and it's only worth just about that, mind you) is always here, so here are my thoughts...

I always have had my toddler take two naps a day until he no longer needs them. (These usually fall mid-morning and mid-afternoon by the time he's a toddler and down to only two naps a day.)

Then, when he's ready for only one nap per day (as evidenced by difficulty getting him back to sleep for the second nap) he switches to "quiet play time" in his crib, bed, or room for the morning hours, during what was usually the morning nap. This involves open shades, Classical music playing, and special toys or books selected by you or him and brought to his room for use during this hour. (You don't want him to fall asleep, but he's used to doing so at this time. Gradually work up to an hour if this is hard for him by adding a few minutes each day, but don't let him fall asleep!) The one nap for the day usually moves to an earlier hour than it was previously, beginning sometime after lunch but never past 3:00. (Later than that interferes too much with bedtime.)

When the child is no longer needing an afternoon nap (as evidenced by no longer sleeping during this time in spite of being left in there for over an hour), his former "quiet play time" in the morning becomes a quiet reading time (where he reads silently to himself, or looks at books if you haven't been teaching him to read) and the afternoon nap time becomes "quiet play time."

What this accomplishes until very late into the "mothering young ones (and possibly homeschooling older ones)" stage of life is that there is always at least an hour during which you have no children around you. When they're very young, they're napping morning and afternoon. When they get older, they're playing morning and napping afternoon. When they're a little older, they're reading morning and playing afternoon. Finally, when they're old enough to need some serious "uninterrupted school time with Mom," they're getting it in either the morning or the afternoon slot while their little siblings sleep/play. The "other slot" (where they're still reading and siblings are still sleeping or playing) is your devotional hour, whether you choose morning or afternoon.

Guard it with your life!

When they get older still (say, six or seven), they either go to school or they have some independent work during homeschool hours, and they know by now never to disturb Mom during her hour alone with the Lord. (It has been an established "given" in either the morning or afternoon as long as they can remember.)

Once the teaching load on you (if you're homeschooling) vamps up enough to crowd out the ability to jealously guard this hour (either because you have continued to have many children and are having a hard time giving each of them the individualized instructional time they need without tapping into that devotional hour, or because you have middle and high school students whose loads are now quite heavy and which therefore take more planning/grading time from you), you will be in your early-to-mid forties and your sleep will get hormonally messed up and you'll be able to have devotional time during whatever is the unique hour that your body decides it won't sleep even though it should be doing so. (I understand this varies from woman to woman, but it is pretty universal, from what I've seen. Enjoy your full nights' sleep now, while you can! ;)

Anyway, that's how I've made it work. I also make a point of reading instructive or spiritual non-fiction in front of my children from earliest ages, while they're playing or whatever. It is good for them to see you read, and it is good to keep that as another guarded-with-your-life discipline even as your days get busier when they get older.

I will mention that our days have never involved daytime television of any kind, and computer time is extremely limited. Kids will never choose to read if there's electronic activity (even "educational" gaming or television programming) available as the other option.

And, here's the kicker - same goes for you, too, Mom! Most women will usually not choose a devotional time or a time of reading challenging non-fiction if Facebook or email or surfing the Web are the other options. Make a deal with yourself that you can't get on the computer or turn on the television until you've had your devotional hour. Maybe this isn't an issue for you, but if it is, cut it out. It is a potential waster of huge amounts of time. Set yourself a timer like you likely do for your kids, and don't allow yourself anymore than thirty minutes a day or whatever.

If "electronic distraction" isn't an issue for you, figure out what is, and make a deal with yourself in that arena. If you can do this sort of thing without becoming legalistic, find whatever "motivation" works for you and don't let yourself have that thing (like a shower, or some other thing that is very important to you each day) until you've had your devotional hour. Usually, if you don't get dinner until it is done, you'll make it happen! ;)

In my experience, once it is an established habit (using this inferior motivation of deny-myself-the-thing-I-usually-make-sure-happens, until the devotions are done), the spiritual and emotional benefits you see in your life - and the fact that it has been planned for and committed to - are enough to keep the practice going.

If anyone else has any other thoughts or ideas, feel free to comment.

Fireproof

Mock if you will, but I'm one who enjoyed the movies "Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants." Sure, some of the acting was bad. Sure, some of the effects were obviously and embarrassingly low-budget. But the stories were good. They were movies I wanted to show my kids... and their friends. They were movies I wanted people to see. They were remarkably similar to the prime time television all of America used to watch weekly when I was little. (Think Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons here. It is unbelievable to me that these family-oriented shows were the usual weekly fare in households just thirty years ago.) Anyway, there is a new movie coming out that's written and produced by the same crew. This one stars Kirk Cameron, and - however cheesy it may end up being - I'm going to see it. I'm not convinced that some movies are not all the better for being distinctly UN-Hollywood.

To read or not to read, that is the question...

This morning I received a transcript of an audio program extolling the benefits of family reading. I love what they had to say, because I believe it to be so true. We have been doing this right before bed since our first child was born. Reading her a bedtime story just shifted into "family read-aloud" when she got old enough to handle following "chapter books" by making it from one night to the next. We started reading a chapter a night when she was two years old, but I'm sure we could have started even sooner. Her younger brother was a baby at the time, and he (and his subsequent siblings) sat in on it every night even of their infant lives.

(This is the son who went on to read Tolkien's entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, independently and with full comprehension, when he was five years old - but that is another story for another time.)

The speaker is author Richard Grant:

You know, Mike, what we actually do is what is actually important to us. The biggest thing to free up time for reading would be for parents to set reading as a high priority, and then do it. We spend time on Little League, ballet lessons, all kinds of good things, but few of those activities are going to impact our kids as profitably as reading. How many of our kids are really going to be pro ball players or ballerinas? Not many. But they all need to be good readers. So parents can set reading higher on their list of things to do.

Another thing they can do is turn off that TV. It consumes us. Turn it off! There are a whole lot more good books than there are good TV shows.

Also, a busy homeschool mom can add recreational reading to her daily routine. Every day she can schedule a time when everyone, including herself, gets a specific number of minutes to read quietly. I call this USSR: uninterrupted silent sustained reading. No phone calls, no chores, no answering the door. Just reading. Reading like this can be an oasis in an otherwise hectic homeschool day.

What a great idea about the USSR! Our homeschool day requires this kind of silent reading of each of our children, but how fun to work it in so that occasionally you're doing it simultaneously. I'm sure it is encouraging to the younger ones to see all the older ones in the family (including their parents) reading at the same time they are.

In an era when one in four Americans has not read a single book during the past year, we can make a significant difference in whether our children fritter away their lives in front of a moving screen, or become the lifelong learners that those who love to read are destined to be. (Here's a hint: as long as the addictive flickering screen is an option, they'll never choose the book. Or much of anything else, for that matter.)

Anyway, happy reading!

Glued to the Tube

Last thing last night before I went to bed, and first thing this morning after I got up, I was struck with the same thing. As a nation, we are addicted to television. Besides the obvious family example going on around me within this beach house (which has been rather mild this week, actually), I've seen the evidence first-hand all around us this week... especially in the late night and early morning hours of semi-darkness.

At night, when we go outside to walk the dog before turning in or to take in one last view of the beach before heading to bed, all around us are larger-than-life big screen televisions showing through the windows of the beach houses surrounding us. These large windows, left unadorned with shades to allow for the magnificent beach views during the day, also allow a clear view into the house after dark, demonstrating what must be nearly every family's evening activity. (Including ours, occasionally... the movie the kids have been begging to watch for the past three days, we watched together last night before bed.)

This is not new information to me. I have known that most everyone I know watches hours of television every day, back home. What has newly struck me here is how much it is true even when they're staying in paradise. (Everything around us is more beautiful and peaceful, and yet many ignore it in favor of the frantic and mindless experience of the usual television fare.)

I'm also amazed at how it is true around the clock. When we walk up from the beach to shower and make dinner, the TV's are going in all the beach houses we pass on the way. When we head out for a walk or bike ride after dinner, the televisions all around the neighborhood are going. When we walk the dog before bed, they're going. If I get up in the middle of the night to stumble to the bathroom, they're going. And when I get up just after sunrise to go walking, they're going.

The images are frantic... hectic... frenzied... When you stand outside of the experience, viewing it minus the sound, it strikes you just how frenetic and chaotic and dizzying the flashing of the images is.

No wonder the average kid has no attention span, no ability to sit still and listen to a normal message delivered in a normal tone of voice in a normal setting. He's been conditioned - since his parents put him in front of "children's educational programming" in infancy - to expect a visual change every second or two, having actually had his brain rewired in the process to be unable to attend to things that happen in "real time." (See here, or here, or here, just the first 3 of 12,300,000 results I got when I googled 'television bad for children.' When I googled 'television good for children,' I got "only" 243,000,000 entries, but it is worth noting that each of these - if the first ten I looked at are any indication - all depend on making the experience good by carefully choosing the programming, watching the show with your children, discussing what they've seen with them, etc.)

I would assume, however, that this is not what's happening during the eight hours and fourteen minutes average that the television set is on each day in the typical American household. This staggering figure doesn't include any of the time that the average American child spends playing computer and video games, which - according to research published in the Science Digest Journal of Pediatrics - has surpassed television viewing.

Yeah, and they also spend hours with earplugs in their ears listening to music; and hours surfing the web; and hours sending IM and text messages to their peers, about their peers. "According to figures released by the National Statistical Office on Wednesday, teenagers between 15 and 19 on average sent a whopping 60.1 text messages per day, a slight increase from 59.5 in 2005."

What on earth are we doing? I'm reminded of something I read this week in Gregg Harris's book The Christian Homeschool. It is not at all the most seminal in this book full of salient points, but it is clearly relevant for this discussion. In making the point that "storytelling" is extremely important in the training and education of our children (not as in reading them a book aloud or spinning them a verbal yarn; but as in making every occasion, holiday, lesson, or life experience a chance to discuss a pertinent story from Scripture or history or experience), he notes:

"Television is perhaps the greatest enemy of storytelling today. When the tube goes on, all conversation stops. When it appeared in America, the front porch swing disappeared. It's time for us to take a second look and determine how to best use our time.

Storytelling isn't something we do only a designated times. As we read in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, we should be teaching throughout every day - as we're out walking, as we're driving in a car, as we're getting the children dressed in the morning. We should tell stories about the fish we've caught, the tree houses we've built, the dolls we loved, the honesty of Abraham Lincoln, the was Jesus sought out the sinful tax collector named Zaccheus, and so on. There is plenty of time to tell these stories. There is just not enough time for watching television."
- From The Christian Homeschool. Published by Noble Publishing Associates, Gresham, Oregon. Copyright 1995 by Gregg Harris.

That is, of course, if the television actually goes off... which, if what I've seen flashing out of all these beach houses all week is any indication, ain't likely. But this also requires that we're with our children throughout the day, which - in this age of working mothers and age-segregated schooling - also ain't likely.

But that is another topic for another day, when I am not itching to get outside into the beautiful surf and sand to spend the last glorious day of vacation with my family.