The Artful Life: 10 Crafty Tips to Boost a Child’s Self-Confidence and Improve Academic Performance: #1
Categories: family, The Artful Life
As parents, we strive to help our children grow up to be healthy, productive adults. Times are changing faster than ever, and parents are working harder to make ends meet. With constant introduction to new technology, as individuals and as a family, we have more choices than we’ve ever had before. So how do we stay focused and ensure we give our children the best upbringing possible? In this series we will share some tips we have found that help children develop a positive self image, and encourage success in the classroom.
#1: Kill the TV
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| image by George Foster, via Flickr |
No you don’t have to leave it by the side of the road, and you don’t have to live without television all together, but have you looked at your cable bill? Not only can you cut some cost from the family budget here, but you can add some serious time to the family schedule! If you are a die-hard sports fan (and most of us are) this will be really hard, but what if you tried living without cable just long enough to re-qualify for that promotional rate? There’s a lot of great things to view on television, but there’s also a lot of junk. Even with the convenience of TiVo and DVR, it’s likely there are a lot of TVs broadcasting a lot of different things around the house.
Take control of your television by watching the shows and movies you want, when you want to watch them. Catch your news and sports scores on the internet and radio. For TV series and movies, instant downloads from Netflix, and DVDs purchased or rented from the library will surprise you with their immense selection. Give kids a break from comparing themselves to the kids on TV, and comparing their stuff with what they see in advertisements. Try watching TV with no commercials and only at designated times of the day.
Too extreme? What do you think?
Stay-tuned for tip #2 tomorrow!
