No TV

Jordan has a divergent squint in one eye. It was stable for a while but seems to have deteriorated between the last and recent visit. It upsets me because I know what caused it to get worse. Much as I hate it, the children spend quite a large amount of time watching television. And worse still, they hang out on the iPads when they are at Grandma's. It's something that is hard to control because 3 children are more often than not, too much to handle. iPad time gives everyone in the house some quiet, space and respite from the noise and inevitable conflict.

But what is more convenient for us has caused her condition to worsen. So, in an effort to stave off the surgery that is the next step, we have stepped up the eye exercises that she needs to do. On top of that, I have tried to reduce the amount of time they all spend in front of the television. It has been that after dinner time is television time. This allows our helper to clean up and for us to have dinner before their bed time.

But in the last 3 days, I've taken television off the choices of after dinner entertainment. I replaced it with board games and whatever games of their choice. Muffin asked for television the first night but yesterday, all three were happy building blocks after playing a board game with Packrat. They played side by side, they built big structures and Jordan figured out how to get her jigsaw road to fit over her already built tower.

By this evening, it was almost as if they forgot that the television existed. After dinner, they came looking for us, asking what games we were going to play and what books we were going to read. With the 3 of them, Packrat and I tag team. One reads or plays with the older two and the other plays with Muffin who is still a little bit young to play games. The game of choice this evening was Scrabble; Scrabble for their age. Muffin was happy to muck about with puzzles while his siblings tried to pair sounds with letters and colours with Papa.

Happily, there was much less conflict. Possibly because they had our full attention. But whatever it was, they were happy to go off to bed with us. Jordan asked for me to read Naughty Amelia Jane Again!, her first foray into Enid Blyton, something that warms my heart.

I am not sure how long we can keep this up for because it does take a lot of effort on our part, especially when Muffin disrupts and demands for Mommy's attention while Mommy is trying to do what the twins are asking for. But as long as we can, we will do so. They obviously get more out of it, benefit from it and feel our presence much more this way.

Now, to resist the overwhelming urge to go out there and by more board games!

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