Is there anyone else here that has chosen not to have TV in your home? What was the deciding factor? How has it affected you or your kids? Just interested in hearing some ideas. We don't have TV and we feel like we've been blessed for it. My thought is that it can cut into family time and even intimacy as a couple. Who shares my thoughts...?

We don't have aTV eaither. Neither dh nor I were raised with one and we did not feel a need to have one. We didn't want that type of influeance in our house. No matter how careful you are kids are going to see something questionable if not in the programming then in the commercials. We have a DVD player on the computer and that satisfies ant "media time" we need. :lol: It is addicting too and does distract from family time, interacting with eachother, not watching TV together. Anyway that is my opinion.

We don't have TV, however we do have a TV, but we just watch videos or dvd's on it. Like, we let my dd watch 2 videos a day. DH and I were both raised with heaps of tv in our lives as kids. But we both feel that what comes on the tv is not beneficial to our spirits and we don't want our kids watching that junk either. Plus it takes away from family time.

We decided to get rid of TV 3 years ago. We are so much happier without it. I found myself spending a lot of time in front of it, and planning my schedule around what was on. I also would find myself getting irritated with my kids when they would interrupt the show I was watching... Wha? That is when I decided to NOT put it in my house anymore. My kids and family are more important than the tv!

I spend more time with my kids and husband and the tv is not the biggest influence in our lives. We eat dinner together every night, not in front of the tv. We don't have to have the influence of commercials and inappropriate mateiral coming into our house and affecting our children.

I do miss it sometimes, especially when I go to my moms and get to see the decorating shows, I love those shows. My husband misses the sports and NASCAR, but I am so glad not to have to watch sports all day Sunday!
We can get all the news on the internet so we stay up to date, and DH can see the sports scores on the internet, so he feels like he is in the know.

Anyway, I can't preach enough about not having tv. We still have the TV set, and we watch netflix or the videos that we own, but not network television. I am so much happier without it!!!

I think moderation is the key! :D

I agree that moderation is the key. Frankly, we have a hard time with that in our house (my DH is a courtv addict! Ugh!) And there have been many times that I felt like God was prompting me to get rid of the satellite and just have local programming and videos. Unfortunately, my DH hasn't come to this decision/conviction yet. I will keep praying and hope that God either gives me peace about it or changes DH heart about the matter.

Wish I felt I could just do it, but feel I must respect him as the head of household. MY DS watches only videos and plays the occasional video game with my DH. We are in agreement that he needs to have more educational/play time. Thank goodness he doesn't care much about tv.

Dh likes watching TV. If I were alone I'd probably skip cable, and just watch DVDs now and then.

We have a tv, we don't subscribe to any cable or dish services. We watch videos sometimes. When DS was younger I seemed to have it on all morning, while I was feeding him, etc. As he's gotten older I realize we barely turn it on anymore. We do have a few shows that we watch but for the most part it is off. We feel there are so many better choices of things to do than sit in front of a television.

We don't have a television. When we were engaged, I thought hard about not wanting one. I came to that conclusion, and without me even talking to him about it, my DH before he was my DH, brought the subject of television up and asked what I thought of not having one in the house. His reasoning behind it was because his room mate before we got married had a huge one, and they spent a lot of time playing video games on it. So much so, my husband's grades and schooling suffered very badly. We decided that we didn't want that to happen again, so the easiest way was to totally remove the temptation. We both grew up with television, highly monitored about what we could and could not watch too. We also discussed our future children and decided that there really isn't that much on worth watching, and little ones aren't really supposed to watch it anyway.

I think we have had more time together as a couple without it. We do have a dvd player in the computer that we use occasionally. (right now, we are working through season 1 of 24.) There is more time for other things because we don't have the tv there ready and waiting for us to turn it on.

We were considering getting one when we move as the place we want pays for cable. However, the tv we were going to get was renigged on. His uncle decided he wanted to keep it in his nursing home room. DH's mom then offered us the one in her room (it is actually DH's but she's always had it) and we were like, no thanks. My mom told me over Christmas that she nearly got us one because we didn't have one. I told her in a very nice way that it would have been returned to the store. That we didn't want nor need one. That the reason we don't have one isn't because we can't afford it (we do have the one at MIL's) but that we don't want it. She looked at me as if I came from another planet or something.

It has been nearly two years since I have lived with a tv. A bit longer for DH. While we do occasionally miss it, we don't miss the junk. We like having the time to talk to and spend with each other. I don't think I really want one. Whenever we go and visit either set of parent's the TV is always on, it is distracting and we don't talk as much. Drives me crazy.

Can I tell you, there have been days when I asked dh to take the remotes to work with him so I wouldn't be tempted to have the TV on. Its such a habit, with being home all day and needing something on "in the background." These high-tech time wasters truly are a downfall...that goodness ds has little intrest in TV; all he likes is Judge Judy :D

Maybe someday he'll be a judge! :D

Well, our kids have small t.v.'s in their bedrooms for watching dvd's and for playing PlayStation or Nintendo, but they aren't hooked up to our dish. We also have a big t.v. out in our family room, which can be hooked up to the dish but we leave it unhooked almost 100% of the time. The only t.v. that we keep hooked up for normal t.v. viewing is in our bedroom, and it seldom goes on until after our day is through. I don't like the noise or the distraction. I love to have music on instead.

My kids who are 7,10, 12, and 14, really don't like t.v. very well. I offer to hook up the one in the family room for them and they've never said yes. They aren't interested. :D I've noticed when we scroll through the channels together in my bedroom, which is something we seldom do, the kids want to stop on the history channel when they're talking about something they've heard about, or on Discovery, Animal Planet, or Cooking. Scotty now wanders ino my room while I'm watching the news, too.

There are two shows we are watching with our kids right now. We all watch American Idol together, and we watch Survivor with our two older kidlets while the two younger take a bowl of popcorn to their room and usually watch their Full House dvd's.

The biggest difference I notice in my kids who see so little t.v. is that they their discernment and sensitivity are through the roof. I've never once had to tell them to look away during a bad commercial because they all automatically turn away or cover their faces. :shock:

[lovesign]

Joy [welcomewave]

I've never once had to tell them to look away during a bad commercial because they all automatically turn away or cover their faces.

Ds runs screaming from the room when the HIP VIP Meciare commercial comes on (the one with the woman on the dirt bike jumping through a flaming hoop) :lol:

no cable/dish cause we can't afford it but, I'd probably die w/o tv/movies especially with morning sickness and a preschooler. Dh and enjoy movies as time together and we talk in bed=) I don't watch alot of my own tv programs but, emme watches pbs alot. Dh likes nintendo too. It's nice to have the tv in the winter though we're pretty active in the summer.

We have always had a tv, and we have to re-evaluate every once in a while if we find ourselves watching too much, but we watch more in the winter months than summer/warmer months. We also don't have cable, satellite, or anything like that, and out here in the country, we don't get too many channels, but we do get some, so we watch what we can. Ds watches PBS mostly. ;)

Our downfall is the Twilight Zone Marathon on the SciFi channel every New Year's. Our game for the past 7 years is to call up and get "real" cable a few weeks before the marathon (that leaves me a couple of weeks of non-stop Lifetime :lol: ) then after the marathon we call up and go back to "cheapskate cable" which is just the local channels (we can't get channels at all here without some kind of cable). That usually works out splendidly because only 3 or 4 of those channels are in English, so we rarely watch TV anyway. But this year presented a new problem... the cable company offered us a deal with the internet we already have; they'd throw in "real cable" and phone for only $50 more...well the regular phone was already so expensive ($about $35/month just to keep the phone on the wall, not including any calls) and the price of the package was so good that it would actually cost me $30 MORE per month to go back to "cheapskate cable". Needless to say, I really have to monitor myself or I'll be eating the bread of idleness a little too often :lol:

Cristina, you're so funny!! [rotfl] [rotfl] [rofl]

[loveflag]

Joy [welcomewave]

No TV here; we just built a theater to watch our DVD movies in, but that's the extent of it; we've never had a TV in our married lives and we do NOT regret it. My in-laws have TV/Cable and we won't let the kids watch when we are over... I can't believe the commercials that are on TV and more so I can't believe how sensitive I have become, or how insensitive to them I was before.

There's no way my kids will be allowed to watch regular cable at our house or anyone else's if we can help it. Obviously they are going to be exposed to it some day but, not with our help or consent.

I think if we could have JUST the shows we like (discovery channel shows about animals and such, animal planet shows about animals that kind of thing) and NO commercials and no unwanted programming, then I would be okay with it... otherwise.... no... No way.

We watch TV. I think the key is moderation and monitoring what the kids watch. It's just like allowing your children to use a computer...you have to have filters on it and watch where they go and what they are looking at. TV, like anything, can have it's good and it's bad sides to it. Moderation on everything is the key :D .

Stephanie :D

I wish that the cable companies would do an "a la carte" plan where you can make your own package of a few channels...

I wish that the cable companies would do an "a la carte" plan where you can make your own package of a few channels...

ditto

We have 4 tv's in the house. My in-laws gave our first born daughter a tv when she was 3 (now 8)!! We were floored to say the least!! We don't watch tv until my husband comes home from work than he watches a lot on the movie channels and sports channels. I only will turn it on during the day when it is rest time and I have all children laying down. It is more or less background noise for me. We moderate what our children watch and when they watch it. However, I have a daycare family who there 3 year old can run the dvd and everything. They use the tv as a babysitter and you can definitly tell it with how there children act!

We have a 3 tvs. one in the living room and and one in our bedroom and one in gabe's room

the living room tv is always on, but honestly, no one watches it. It's always on either nbc, fox, or pbs.

the one in our bedroom never leaves nbc, dh and I usually watch it at night and it's usually only on from bedtime until we get up in the a.m.

Gabe's, I think is rarely turned on. When it is, though, it's usually for a video or to play games or something

we do not have cable or satelite. we're in the country, and cable isn't an option, and we don't need satelite. we can't figure what we would do with so many chanels when you can only watch one at a time. we have plain ol' "bunny ears" on all of our tv's.
but we're on top of a hill, so in all honesty, our bunny ears are clearer than the satelite at my parents house!