Screen time and the Key to Ultimate Power

Apart from all the research that says that screen time will and does contribute to childhood obesity, attention issues and all round idiocy, I know that there is good and bad screen time.

Here's the bad:

turning on the TV for no reason other than habit
watching crap with no educational and little to no decent entertainment value
watching crap that will have a detrimental effect on a child (eg violence)

Here's the good:

watching stuff in English and Spanish
watching and participating with your child while watching by explaining, commenting etc.
watching and learning values and languages
watching decent, educational and decent entertaining stuff

In this house we watch WAY too much TV, DVDs and computers. More than one on at a time, type of thing. It drives me NUTS.

Daddy is Cuban. In Cuba the TV is background noise all day, every day from when you wake up to after you have gone to sleep. In my family, my mother point blank refused to have the TV anywhere else than in the basement and we had one TV. This was weird for North America.

So. First and foremost, thank you mum. Secondly, my turn to fight the battle.

But I feel as though I am fighting a battle that is too big for me. I don't know if Daddy doesn't believe me, is lazy or just doesn't think. But y'know, sometimes I leave the room and some screen gets flicked on in an instant.

WTHC?????

That said, I do hold The Key to Ultimate Power which I am very reluctant to use.... sooooooo, here's my plan:

1. Start slow. Majorly reduce TV in the mornings, instead, breakfast at the table (not on the sofa) with music or nothing. THe music must be classical and can involve a computer of a YouTube video. This week we watched Glenn Gould play Bach with me commenting on it (pointing out the rhythym and Gould's piano stool etc) - I'm OK with that kind of screen time.

2. Turn the damn screens off in the evenings after a certain point. 

3. Bribe / convince / corrupt Daddy and Elias to engage in no TV after school. If this doesn't work, try covering the TV with a blanket. If that doesn't work...

4. ...take the cable away. If that leads to computer time...

5. ...well, I could get mean. The Key to Ulitmate Power. The computer is mine, the password is mine... Awful? Yes. But maybe just once? Would probably lead to more problems than not but hell, either that or my child's brain may turn to mush...