I took away the television. Completely. Open-endedly.
It wasn't anything having to the do with the television per se. At the moment I took it away the TV wasn't even on, although it had seen some action earlier in the day.
Robespierre and I have been butting heads lately on issues of manners and empathy, completely typical for a mother and a 12-year-old boy, yet still distressing for me. I understand that he wants to assert himself by the way he dresses or the language he uses. I know it's totally uncool to kiss your mom goodbye in the morning (although, could he spare a wink or a thumbs up? Sheesh). These are not the things that keep me awake at night.
What does keep me awake is my concern that he might drift away from the persona I've tried to help him establish as a kind, thoughtful human being, a mensch. It's okay if he wants to dress gangsta-ish or goth-ish; to him dressing goth is little more than wearing black and he looks good in black, so what do I care? It's okay if he feels like cursing after stubbing his toe; I feel the same way.
What's not okay is failing to acknowledge that there are other people at home, at school, in public, who deserve the same respect and consideration that he expects and deserves. It's not okay to eat the last of the ice cream without asking if anyone else wanted some, or to crank up the car radio without asking the driver and other passengers if they mind. It's not okay to tirade at your sister for waking you when she opens the door to her own room because she forgot you were sleeping there.
Did he pick up thoughtless manners from television? Maybe. But that's not the main reason I benched the TV.
I turned off the television because it was sucking so much out of him that he had nothing left when it came to interacting appropriately with other people. I don't mean interacting in a school / work sense, since he's not watching television at school. I mean making eye contact, holding a conversation, thinking through a conflict in an attempt to come up with a solution that didn't incorporate the tween version of road rage. He'd been spending so much time with the television that most of his interactions with me and his sister had become compressed, quickie versions of normal human interactions, featuring amplified emotions that bowled us over like a tsunami. If he was angry, he was REALLY angry. If he was impatient, he was ABSOLUTELY impatient. I felt like I was navigating a minefield and the best I could do was keep my head down.
Not only that, but have you noticed how LOUD everything is on television? Everyone is saving the world, or battling evil, and nothing ever happens quietly. Don't believe me? Refresh your memory with a clip from A Charlie Brown Christmas, and notice how serenely and quietly the message is conveyed.
It finally became clear that if I hoped to keep developing the great guy he's always been, I had to eliminate his main distraction, or at least temporarily disable it. I simply can't hold his attention if it's being dominated by Nickelodeon or MTV or Disney. Now, I might have a fighting chance.
The computer's next to go.
Will my experiment work? What do you think?
