Don’t let your home look like your office: the importance of your home environment
Does your home look more like an office every day? Computers in the bedrooms? Laptops scattered around the house? Rebel iPods and iPads? What is happening to our homes in this growing media/digital age of ours? Stopping to consider what we want our homes to look like and what kind of environment we want our children to live in can really help their healthy development.
John Dewey, the renowned educator, used to say, “The environment teaches.” In other words, what we put into our environment and what we choose to leave out, he says a lot. Television in a child’s room lets our five-year-old know that we value watching television but are unaware or unwilling to listen to expert advice on keeping television out of a child’s bedroom. Our children grow up closely watching our choices. They absorb what is in their environment, learning every minute.
Any parent can tell you that the advantage of baking cookies or bread is not only the pleasure at the end of the process, but the smells during it. We know that our children feel comforted and calm when dinner is cooked on the stove. And what father hasn’t experienced his son excited and curious about him, when suddenly the electricity goes out due to a storm? Now the kids are in a different environment and don’t they just love the adventure and express their disappointment when the lights come back on?
Yes, the environment teaches. And nothing impacts our children and their learning in school more negatively than excessive use of television, video games and computers. Parents can promote smart use of screen technologies by ensuring that the family home environment supports children’s optimal brain development. These simple actions can make profound positive differences in your children’s academic abilities, as well as their behavior and attitudes. And you can rest easy, knowing you’re intentionally creating a home environment that allows for family reflections, communication, and loving connections… all so important to nurture in our increasingly distracting digital world.
1. Turn off the TV when no one is watching it.
Using television as “background noise” is not a good idea for young brains. When kids are playing games or doing homework near a blaring TV, they can’t focus attention, process information, or use higher-level thinking functions very well. Make it a family rule to turn the TV on only when someone is watching it, and then turn it off when the show is over. It will help your child’s learning skills and model a smart way of using TV.
2. Keep the television in your child’s room free.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that there be no television in a child’s bedroom. Instead, put in a bookcase or shelves for books, large pillows to lean back for reading, and an audio tape recorder, with plenty of tapes of stories. You will develop in your child a lifelong reading habit that will go a long way in developing your child’s imagination and school success!
3. Make educational programs a family event.
Once a month, watch an educational TV show or video as a family. Have dessert afterwards and discuss the contents with your child. It is modeling how television and video can be used to develop smart brains. Ask your child to think about the show and the family discussion and review the ideas in another week. Thinktime will reveal more exciting ideas to discuss.
4. Set some realistic rules.
Don’t watch TV until homework is done; reject violent programs, say no to text messages during dinner or homework; and limiting all screen time to one hour a day or less are rules that will help your child’s school habits and also help them develop healthy screen habits.
5. Place some comfortable chairs across from each other.
Too often our furniture is arranged so that we can look at a screen and not at each other. By taking care of the placement of furniture in some rooms of our house, we have a natural way for parents and children to talk to each other in a more focused and attentive way. A great place to discuss the recent TV show or movie the family just watched together.
6. Consider a laptop/family computer.
Instead of buying each of your kids a laptop or computer, you can prevent instant Internet access by having one in a central area for everyone to share. Your children learn to take turns and interact with the people, books, and creative projects around them, instead of spending all their time with a screen machine.
Copyright, Gloria DeGaetano, 2010. All rights reserved.
