What to do while TV is off
| • | Talk back to the tube |
Gannett News Service
Almost 7 million people are expected to participate in the ninth annual "Turn Off the TV Week," today through Sunday. Once the set is turned off, try some of these ways to spend time with your family.
- Initiate a contest for the most creative use of family time without the TV. Ask family members to think of three activities each and then vote for the best. The reward can be a book about your child's favorite character.
- Spend a night making a list of what each individual family member's dreams and hopes for the future are, then take turns reading them aloud.
- Walk around the block and meet the neighbors behind you.
- Tomorrow is Earth Day. What difference can you make in the environment? Show Mother Earth that you love her by taking a family bike ride, planting a garden or going for a hike.
- Exercise. One of every five U.S. children is considered obese. Lack of exercise (mainly because children have become TV-watching couch potatoes) is the No. 1 cause.
- Wednesday is Shakespeare's birthday. Choose a scene from one of his plays and act it out.
- At 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Waldorf School Niu Valley Hall, 350 Ulua Street, Betty Staley speaks on "Educating Character in the 21st Century: Considering the impacts of technology and changes in society on the life of the child," a TV-Turnoff Week lecture. Information: 377-5490.
- Explain to your children why you want to turn the TV off for a week. If they are told in age-appropriate language, they will be more likely to cooperate and not view it as a punishment.
