We returned home from the school run today in the usual chaos of animated discussion about everything that had happened in the day, throwing off of shoes and coats, and the finishing of snacks that had been started en route. My eldest got changed out of her school uniform. I had an important call to make so ushered the three girls into the playroom. I heard the TV go on immediately and felt rather disappointed that they weren’t playing instead.
Homework versus TV
I ended up leaving a voicemail so went to join them in the playroom straight after. I got my eldest’s reading homework out and sat down to listen to her read, saying we should do it before dinner. At that point she looked at me and said: “I’ve been working really hard all day at school, we’ve only just got in and I want to relax for a bit.”
I’m not a big fan of them watching too much TV and regular readers will know that we do a lot of activities – indoors and outdoors -that don’t involve the gogglebox, but I did find it rather hard to argue with her. She’d been looking forward to an episode of My Little Pony that is on this afternoon. I know if there’s an episode of Corrie or Eastenders that I want to watch, no-one is going to get in the way of that particular guilty pleasure.
Dinner will be ready in 15 minutes time, there’s no TV in the dining room and I’ve said that after they’ve eaten there’ll be no TV. They all agreed without protest. We’ll do the reading and then we’ll play some games together.
I’m left thinking that perhaps children really do need some downtime that literally just involves sitting back and tuning out for a bit. All things in moderation.
1 Comment
Absolutely Fran, I agree they too need some relaxation time. I think Sofia probably does work hard at school so too much home-work I think might be detrimental. They learn a lot in everyday life within the family as well.
Let them have their tele time and they might respond more after.
As you rightly said, us adults also have our favourites so we should remember that as well.