I don't want to traumatize my children with television shaming

(From my original Blogspot)

In one of my classes at school, the professor was lecturing about parental issues regarding raising adolescent children. She quoted an interesting article in her lecture that pointed out that difficulties in raising teens are more an indicator of the parents problems than the teenager's problems. She said that as children enter adolescence, the parents have to come face to face with issues in their life that they had been able to ignore as the teen challenges boundaries and beliefs. I've been really thinking about this, and I think it is true.

The use of the television in the home is an issue that is surfacing for me. When my children were very young, I had fairly tight control of the viewing. My rules sprang out of a desire for them to keep television to a minimum, and maximize positive development in their lives through chores and play (sounds nice, doesn't it?). But, underneath this is an anxiety towards television that is not grounded in rationality.

When I was a child, my mother had high anxiety towards television and all of us kids now have "television issues," I would say. I don't think any of my siblings watch TV (except for one who was once married to a movie lover and gradually developed the habit/ability). Anyway, my mother was hyper-vigilant to see that we watched as little as possible, and had a zero tolerance policy for filth of any kind. She never watched TV, and anyone watching TV in the house was suspect. She would even talk trash about the "oldies" movies that my dad would watch! Heaven forbid she would sit down and hold his hand through one. And, I think I have PTSD from her marching in during a show and making me feel guilty for watching it.

Although I am truly grateful that my mother helped me see the necessity to monitor television viewing, I sometimes wonder how I would have turned out if she hadn't been so eccentric. I mean, I have the hardest time sitting down and watching a show for too long without feeling just awful about myself! The time that is wasted just seems so sad to me! Ideally, we should be reading and discussing literature, or writing letters to family, or hiking.....am I too idealistic?

But...my kids like TV. And....my husband sees value in watching TV. I think his perspective is good. But I am so worried about the children becoming fat and lazy, or that they won't learn to work, or that they are building a life-time habit of living their life through the tube. I think I am giving them PTSD by marching in and making them feel guilty for watching!

Anyway, I am going to have to get past this issue if I am going to have a positive, working relationship with my teenagers.