TV, ADHD, and other random thoughts

Meredith has been watching a lot of TV lately. I’m not someone who sees no value in TV and believes it should be banned from the house altogether, but I also don’t think it can replace physical play, outdoor exploration, and spending time with family. We don’t have cable, but we recently signed up for Netflix, which is actually really great. (Can we say, yay for Mythbusters!) Lots of shows to choose from (at least for her), no commercials, and no being a slave to some arbitrary set time when you have to watch a specific show, or having to wait a week before seeing the next one. Meredith discovered Curious George, then Dora the Explorer, then Diego, Franklin, Blues Clues, Super Why, and many, many more. It hasn’t helped that we were moving, and more recently renovating and painting.

And I do see that she’s really enjoying these shows. Kris and I are both of the personality type that can get hyper-focused. In fact, I recently read a fascinating article on the Freedom to Learn blog about kids diagnosed with ADHD. At one point, he quotes someone from a Sudbury school who says:

The ADHD label is applied to two very different sorts of kids. One type really has "Attention Surfeit Disorder." Most of these get deeply involved in exactly what they want to do… They do their thing–with other kids when it overlaps with other kids’ interests, and without other kids when they are caught up in something that other kids aren’t interested in. They get labeled ADD not because they can’t attend but because they have no coping mechanisms for enforced boredom…..

This really struck a chord with me, as both Kris and I have been diagnosed with ADHD (me officially, not sure about Kris but I know it was suspected in him). However, we have joked that really we have, well, “Attention Surfeit Disorder.” It’s not that we can’t pay attention when we want to, it’s that we tend to hyperfocus on things. When one of us has an interest, in anything, it’s almost all-encompassing. We research, read, watch movies, discuss, etc. In other words, we are totally immersed in whichever topic it is. If someone tries to get us to pay attention to something other than what we’re focused on, they may find it hard to get our attention. We will often have two separate conversations going at the same time, one on his topic of interest and one on mine, but both able to keep up both threads of the conversation with no problems. Other people listening would probably get a headache though.

I would not be surprised if one or both of our kids end up with the same trait. And I think it’s a great trait when you’re not in school, being forced to go from class to class at specific times set by someone else, not given the opportunity to really dive in depth when a topic really interests you. But what a fabulous unschooling trait it is! And I have to keep in mind, that maybe Meredith’s interest right now is TV. It’s not like she’s a 6 month old baby being parked in front of Baby Einstein for brain development (which I don’t agree with). She never showed much of an interest in the TV at all until this past month while we’ve been moving. And it’s never been something that we use as a baby-sitting tool so we can get stuff done. There are tons of other things for her to do around here that she could do on her own just as easily (and often she does).

And the days when I find myself thinking “Wow, she’d sit in front of the TV all day long if I let her”, I have to step back and really examine that thought. Because the truth is, I probably would “let” her if she really wanted to, but she doesn’t. She will often have the TV on while she is busy playing with toys, drawing, jumping, doing gymnastics, “training” the dog, dancing, or any number of other activities, some of which are physical. Around three in the afternoon pretty much every day, she does need some quiet time to just recharge, and lately has chosen to plunk herself in front of the TV and sit like a lump watching it. And I say that very tongue in cheek, because I feel like it’s okay for her to spend some time just “vegging”. Most of the time though, she interacts, she talks to Kris and I about the storylines or the characters, she might act them out later. I have to be honest that I kind of liked that she had no idea who Dora or the myriad other TV characters were, but really I don’t think that pride is at all justified. She doesn’t see commercials, and doesn’t beg for all the Dora backpacks, Diego thermoses, Curious George bedding, etc, when we go out. It’s the commercialism aspect of most of these things that bothers me the most, and so far she doesn’t seem to be influenced by that.

And she spends a lot of time not in front of the TV. This past week we’ve been doing a lot of painting and moving things around, and moved the TV out of our main area and into it’s own room. We now have one large area dedicated to all her toys, as well as an arts and craft area; and then a TV area that is a bit separate where people can go and enjoy a show on their own or we can all go and sit together to watch something. Sometimes she will go off by herself into the other room to watch a show, but often she will be back out before the show is even done to see what we’re up to, paint, play with Play-doh, or play with Fiona. (She is absolutely loving that Fiona is more interactive now. I was a little worried that it would become harder as Fiona became more and more interested in what she’s doing, but it’s actually started to get easier again!)

It snowed the other day, and Meredith spent a lot of time outside playing with Kris (I was way too much of a wuss to go out for long, it was cold!). We don’t spend as much time outside as we normally like lately, but once we are settled and have finished painting and putting everything away (and it’s less cold), it will be so easy to get outside as much as we like.

I have decided not to be overly worried about the TV thing. If she is anything like Kris and I, she will get her fill, and then could go months without ever really showing much interest in it at all. Tonight she asked to watch “Three Little Pigs,” which is actually one of her favourite stories lately that I tell her before bed, but she discovered a show that plays it out too. I asked her if she wanted to make puppets and do our own show of it instead of watching it on TV, and she thought that was a fantastic idea. (That was actually what I had originally sat down to write about but then this rambly TV post popped out instead, so I will blog about the puppets tomorrow.) So I can also see that she is not addicted to the TV, nor is she a zombie or overly stimulated.

I would worry if I thought she was watching the TV because she had nothing else to do and was bored, and was watching it simply because it was there and available. But I see that she is aware of everything else around her and that she consciously chooses to watch the TV, and which shows to watch (and which specific episodes), because she enjoys it, and it is fun and interesting to her right now. Though TV is often demonized and it is easy to worry about her watching too much, when I really step back and pay attention, I can see that there is so much else in her life that she does too, and that TV is really a tiny part of a whole. And most other things we wouldn’t worry about even if they were an all-day, every day thing (like reading books, dancing, playing piano). I don’t want to tell her that something she enjoys has less value than something else I’d rather her enjoy instead. I want her to decide for herself what has value in her own life. The Three Little Pigs thing got me thinking about what I would do if her interest was in something other than TV. But that’s another post for another day, this one is more than long enough.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Chores