Things to Do Other Than Watch TV

A lot of people say to me, “Your kid doesn’t watch any TV?” I answer, “Yup, no TV.” The next questions they often ask is “What do you do all day?” I think we do a lot of different things throughout the day and I would like to use the blog as a venue for sharing these activities. I’d like to make it a weekly feature on Fridays so that folks have some good ideas of different things to do on the weekend and for the week to follow. Our main reasons to not watch TV with the Tomato is so that she has quiet time to explore creative outlets, enjoy music and dancing and because years ago, in an Eric Jensen brain development book, I read about how delaying TV until 3 can help children to widen their vocabularies and build patience and communication skills.

I have been motivated to set up this type of blog post since I watched Oprah’s Next Chapter about Hassidic Jews in Brooklyn, NY. It was a fascinating glimpse into a unique community who values family above all else. I was very struck by the initial conversation that she had with the family whom had volunteered to speak with her. They did not know who she was, as part of the community’s practice is to not watch TV, explore the Internet or any other media. She asked them immediately about TV. She stated that other families in America watch Dancing with the Stars as a way to bond with one another, so what did they do instead of watching TV? The father’s reply was elegant and simple. They dance with their children because they are their stars. It struck a chord and is still resonating with my weeks later. There will be plenty of time down the line to take in a decent TV show, but the most important thing that we can do now with our little one is to be there for her and take part in activities with her. One of those such activities in our house has become birding.

These little guys have been starting to set up shop in the bird houses that we cleaned and I talked about back in this post. We also set up a new house that I got for my birthday.

And we have had some browsers for that house too! I also installed a window feeder so that Tomato can watch the birds up close, but this guy has been our primary visitor.

Sitting in the room and watching him has led to different conversations than I expected to have with her about birds. But, she loves these guys and they are very patient with her when she presses her nose to the glass and waves hello to them. It’s great to watch her enthusiasm for the outdoor world develop and she can be up close with these birds and animals and they know that she can’t get to them, so she can really study them. We probably spend close to an hour total each day doing just this. She asks to see them after she wakes from her nap since she knows that is one of their feeding times. She eats her morning snack while they eat theirs. She asks to go get more food for them. It has been a great interaction and connection.

So, when I came across the Great Backyard Bird Count, I figured this was right up our alley. The folks at the Audubon Society and the Cornell Ornithology Lab have set up this annual event to help collect data about which bird species folks are seeing in their neighborhoods at this point in the year. You were able to print out a checklist, head outside, and count birds for 15 minutes. As their site states, your work can help in a number of ways.

Now, the data collection was for one weekend, but there is no reason why you can’t print out several copies of the bird count and do it several times a year. So, turn off the television and head out this weekend if the weather is good. If rain abounds and you had plans, talk about where the birds may go when it does rain. Conversations about migration, eating habits and how the birds looks change as they move in and out of the seasons are endless. For a toddler, an activity like this leads to important outdoor exploration time and building the foundation of an appreciation of the world as a whole system. For school age kids, it can give them motivation to hit the library after they play outside to find books about birds and wildlife in order to expand their horizons and knowledge. For older children, it may give parents a rare opportunity to have a quiet 15 minutes that isn’t filled with shuttling back and forth to a practice or game and the opportunity to just sit side by side with their teenager on a bench and talk. So, give it a try and let me know what you find, and thank you Audubon Society and Cornell Ornithology Lab for giving us a great starting point for spending time with our families and taking in a deep breath of fresh air.