Question for those who don't have cable or satellite -- or no tv at all...

[ereks mom]

What do you do at home in the evenings, after supper & before bedtime preparations (baths, family devotions, etc.)? (In our house, that would be from about 7:00-10:00 PM.)

 

In my own family, I have noticed that most evenings, we gravitate towards the tv in the living room. (We have two tv's in our house, both connected to satellite, but the living room is our usual gathering place, so the tv in the den is rarely watched.) Sometimes various family members will go to another room to read, play on the computer, listen to music, or talk on the phone for awhile and then wind up in the living room where the rest of the family is. We tend to gather in the living room and the tv is usually on, but we do not just sit there in silence, mesmerized for hours on end. Often, we will work puzzles or work on some kind of project while watching tv. When we do set our projects aside and watch a program, we pause it OFTEN (we have DVR) to discuss parts of it or even to talk about other things, or just to take a break and do something else for awhile.

 

So I'm curious: if your family doesn't have cable or satellite, do you spend time doing things together each evening (or most evenings) when the family is at home? If so, what do you do? Games? Puzzles? Read aloud? Do you watch DVD's? Every evening, most evenings, or just occasionally?

 

Or does each family member do their own thing? If so, what? Are you usually in the same room, or in separate areas of the house?

 

I guess I'm wondering if families who DON'T watch tv as a family activity generally spend time together at home in other ways, or if they each have their own thing.

 

ETA: Do you have teens? How does the no-tv thing work when you have teens who are home with the family on weeknights?

Edited January 13, 2009 by ereks mom

[Snickerdoodle]

I don't know what we do but we are always busy. We do a lot of family reading in the evenings. My kids are relatively little (7&5) and they always have some kind of project going on such as legos, playmobile etc.

[Melinda in VT]

I grew up without a TV from the age of 5 on. (My parents didn't get a TV again until I was a parent.)

 

What I remember us doing most is reading. The radio was usually on--either to a Trailblazers game or to NPR. Often we would make a HUGE tub of popcorn [i have yet to see another family eat popcorn in the quantities we did growing up] and all sit around the kitchen table eating and reading.

 

My mom was frequently puttering around during that time, or working on genealogy or church preparation.

 

As I got older, I was usually doing homework.

 

I grew up in a home with a very open floor plan and with tiny bedrooms, so we were all usually in the same space even if we were doing different things.

[Pamela H in Texas]

We do a mix...

 

We DO have a tv, just not service. So we can watch some tv. What that is depends on the night and what is available.

 

Tuesday night we do family worship night so that takes some time

 

Thursday night we meet with the rest of the congregation.

 

We play a lot of family games.

 

Sometimes we all just do "whatever" from schoolwork, to video games, to computers, to movies, etc.

 

HTHs,

[Snickerdoodle]

[i have yet to see another family eat popcorn in the quantities we did growing up]

 

My mom used to make a brown paper grocery bag full for each of us kids and one for herself and my father. Each one had our own seasonings. We'd have Friday night game night. Oh, the memories...

[KarenNC]

We haven't had satellite, cable or antenna for about 3 1/2 years, though we do watch movies via Netflix or the library. Our daughter is younger (8.5 yo), so often a chunk of that time is taken up with bedtime (bath, reading to her for 20 minutes or so, her own reading time of 15-30 minutes, bedtime songs, etc). Her targeted bedtime is about 8:30, but too often it ends up being 9pm because my husband may not get home until after 6:30 and we try to eat together.

 

Things we may do in the evening if we have free time----watch a dvd, play board games, read independently, time on the computer for one (usually me) while she listens to her dad read to her, etc. We also eat a lot of popcorn <G>. We're usually all in the same room, sometimes doing things together, sometimes independently, but then the computer, the tv, the comfy couch (and, right now more importantly, the gas fireplace <G>) are all in the same room.

 

Dvd's tend to be once or twice a week, perhaps, for her in the evenings. We watch ours after she goes to bed, so actually we end up watching our dvds less often since we frequently get involved with talking, reading or doing other things and it gets to be too late to start a movie. We do watch more tv overall since getting Netflix. I am considering saving up for the set-top box to make watch instantly more usable so that we don't have the dvds sitting around for a week.

[bkpan]

Our 6 dc are 11, 9, 7, 7, 4 and 1, so they are always playing together or with daddy. Between dinner, baths, chores, play, and the occasional dc still doing their schoolwork, the evenings are full and seem to go by very quickly.

 

The dc will occasionally do computer in the evenings, and we watch a DVD as a family about once every 2 weeks. The 11yo will maybe once a week go off to his room to be alone, but other than that daddy and the dc are usually all playing together.

 

(It is mom who has a regular need to lock the bedroom door and find some quiet reading time, lol)

 

Kim

[Deece in MN]

We have a tv, but no cable or satellite. We get movies from Netflix and my dh is a bit annoying about them because he wants to watch them right away so we can send it back and get another one. If a Netflix sits for a couple days it drives him crazy. :)

So, we watch movies, play games, read, go into town to shop and do our own things. We don't miss having tv (we had it for a couple years out of the past 14). I would like more game nights, but we do spend a lot of time together in the evenings when we are all home (dc have some evening activities that take up some of our nights).

[cjzimmer1]

We have no TV here. Our kids are little and are all in bed between 8:00 - 8:30. Supper is all cleaned up by 6:00. Two nights a week we are in church, most nights on the weekend we play family games. One night a week they have swimming and the other two nights are spent with my husband working with the older kids on Bible verses (they are in Bible Quizzing and our oldest will learn close to 300 versus by the time this season is over- he's just over 200 now. The next two are at about 50 verses each(which has been quite challenging since one of those can't read yet)). So it easily takes a couple of hours to run 3 kids through all their material. But the kids love this time with their dad and are all very exited during Bible Quizzing season(October-July).

 

I am SOOOO glad we don't have a TV, I don't know how we would have the time to watch it. And of course if we had one, people would watch it, which means other things wouldn't be getting done.

[Tree House Academy]

We often rent movies or check them out from the library and watch them. If not, we play games, snuggle up on the couch and talk, etc. My kids are much younger though...I am not sure how that would work in a home with a teen. My oldest son will often decide he doesn't like the movie we are watching and he will go to his room and watch a DVD on his computer, read a book, or play Nintendo DS.

[angela in ohio]

No TV here (we have one in our room that dh and I use to watch a movie in bed on Friday nights, but that is it.)

 

We still spend the time together. We play a game and read the Bible aloud until dc go to bed at 8. Then dh and I read, talk, whatever... We spend more time together than we would with TV (I don't count staring in the same direction as spending time together, LOL.)

[Faline]

We are usually all together in one room in the evenings (either the living room or kitchen). We do a LOT of reading, usually a family read-aloud since most of my dc are small. Or the dc play legos or something, or we just hang out. We listen to a favorite 30 minute radio show. Once in awhile we play a game. In the summertime we are often outside.

 

The evenings go seem to go by very fast.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

What do we do at night? Hmm, I'll have to think. We don't watch television. We do have movie night one night/week. We may watch a movie or we may watch a few episodes. We watch mostly old black-and-whites, et c.

 

Otherwise, what do we do?

 

Last night my husband sat at the table and talked to us while my daughter and I made a pillow case. After supper we cleaned the kitchen, all sat in the living room while my husband checked his email, I read, and my daughter studied. We had prayer time (bible reading, catecism study, other religious reading, praying).

 

Tonight we plan to eat and then go to the Y. Afterward we'll do the same prayer time as above, we do that everynight (er . . . mostly).

 

We like to play games.

 

When it's nice we go out for a walk or try to catch fireflies, et c.

 

We *LOVE* to build a fire in the fireplace and sit by it reading, sewing, playing a game. We also LOVE to cook in the fireplace. After supper we might build a fire and make kettle corn or popcorn or something over the fire.

 

My daughter likes to put on little plays for us.

 

homework

 

hmmm, we always have something to do I just can't remember it all.

 

Oh, my husband likes to hear the songs that my daughter and I work on during the day. I play piano, my daughter plays piano and violin.

 

I'm trying to think of wintry things . . .

 

practice things. My daughter is taking a calligraphy class and she likes to practice that in the evenings. Sometimes I do it with her and sometimes not. My husband will read or do something else.

 

We like to listen to radio shows, books on tape, et c. My husband will just listen, my daughter and I like to have our hands busy while we listen.

 

Build forts and take turns besieging each other. We did that the other night.

 

Build with legos/blocks/both.

 

Play with the pets.

 

make dessert for the family. eat it.

 

Look at pictures.

 

And really, we read A TON!!!

[BMW]

I like to read a loud to the children. Baths happen. Older ones stay up at the table working on homework. We keep the TV off all school days/school nights.

[Wendi]

We find that public television has a lot to offer; we love nature and science shows, and "History Detectives" and "Antiques Roadshow". Especially now, with digital TV, we have even more options. (With digital TV, we even have a Christian version of MTV called JCTV; ds has discovered a Christian rock band called Demon Hunters.)

 

We also love to check out DVDs from the library; our library has lots of old TV shows on DVD. Right now, we are on a "Daniel Boone" kick; we're about halfway through season two. Other favorites are "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and "The Flintstones". Our library also has a lot of other good DVDs on history and science topics, movies, and "Mythbusters", which we love.

 

Dh is a creative director; he does graphic design, web design, etc. And ds has talents and interests in that area, so dh has been teaching him Photoshop as well as HTML; now they are creating a website for ds together. So they work on that in the evenings, too.

 

We also read; I still read aloud to ds many nights at bedtime. Currently, we're reading "Hostage Lands" by Douglas Bond. And we all like to be on the computer, surfing the web, playing games, or (in ds's case) editing movies.

 

Sometimes, ds will play with Legos in his room.

 

Wendi

[Danestress]

at least not when the kids are awake. I am becoming and obssesive knitter, so I will "watch" Anderson Cooper while I knit.

 

But I don't let the kids watch tv during the week, and they don't really have a taste for it anyway. Unless there is a game on that's big news for us, they don't watch tv on the weekends either. During the Grand Slam Tennis season, they do watch.

 

Anyway, we have dinner, talk, do dishes together. I read to them sometimes, or they read to themselves. When I had a teen at home (he's in college now) it wasn't a big issue. We just had a "no tv during the week" rule and he was used to it. Sometimes I guess he hung out downstairs with us and talked, other times he did homework or went to his part time job. I can't remember exactly. But we never play games together. DH and I hate games. I think once in a while he did watch a little tv during the week - maybe if there was something special. No tv wasn't a religion for us - we just find it annoying and unnecessary.

[vettechmomof2]

We are normally at karate and kickboxing Monday through Friday nights but if not then we play games, read ALOT, chores, dance, wrestle/spar,puzzles, etc.

Mostly we do these things together, sometimes just my children and i will finish chores. We also play with our pets, care/groom them.

We have 1 tv but no cable/satelite and we only have family movie night on Sunday Nights. Normally 1 movie which follows game night anyway.

So we are big with games here.

[readwithem]

Our evenings fly by. We eat dinner, go for walks, play games, read.... We do have a DVD player and sometimes watch something in the evening - at the moment we're re-watching the interviews for the LOTR movies, it's a convenient thing in the evenings as we can watch for 15-20 minutes at a time.

[lauranc]

We don't have a t.v.-- In the evenings after dinner and before bed here's what we're usually doing:

playing games, reading, making music (piano, guitar, singing), talking, taking a walk etc.. Sometimes I go off and play dolls with my daughter (9) while my sons (14 and 8) play a game with my husband or on their own. And hey... my husband can also be found playing dolls on occasion! Or my kids all go off and do something on their own while my husband and I chat downstairs.

 

My husband also occasionally does science experiments with the kids or takes them outside to look at the stars.

 

My 14 yr old has time alone with dad after the younger 2 kids have gone to bed, and they like to play board games.

 

HTH,

Laura

Edited January 13, 2009 by lauranc
wrong word

[Elohcin]

Mostly we just spend time together. We read or play games or finish up chores or school. I thought I would really miss the tv when we gave it up last April. Between hulu.com and netflix, I can catch the few things I don't want to miss-it's amazing to me how I really don't even miss it at all. The kids don't seem to miss it.

[jamnkats]

What do you do at home in the evenings, after supper & before bedtime preparations? (In our house, that would be from about 7:00-10:00 PM.)

 

In my own family, I have noticed that most evenings, we gravitate towards the tv in the living room (we have satellite tv reception), although sometimes various family members will go to another room to read, play on the computer, listen to music, or talk on the phone for awhile and then wind up in the living room where the tv (and the rest of the family) is. Often, we will work puzzles or work on some kind of project while watching tv. We have two tv's in our house, but one is rarely watched, even though it is connected to satellite also. We tend to gather in the same room, with the tv on.

 

So I'm curious: if your family doesn't have cable or satellite, do you spend time doing things together each evening (or most evenings) when the family is at home? If so, what do you do? Games? Puzzles? Read aloud? Do you watch DVD's? Every evening, most evenings, or just occasionally?

 

Or does each family member do their own thing? If so, what? Are you usually in the same room, or in separate areas of the house?

 

I guess I'm wondering if families who DON'T watch tv as a family activity generally spend time together at home in other ways, or if they each have their own thing.

 

ETA: Do you have teens? How does the no-tv thing work when you have teens who are home with the family on weeknights?

 

We're usually eating around 7pm...the kids play with friends til about 9pm and then the boys generally use their computers after that (but go to bed when they decide - 1am to 3am) and the girls will read with us, play board games with us or we'll watch I Love Lucy DVDs.

[bookmomma]

We have a tv, but only watch movies or educational stuff on it. It's a special treat for the kids on weekends, etc. Dad does watch it at night after kids are in bed.

 

Our evenings...after dinner, bathtime, teeth brushing, we do games together (as a treat on days that the kids were particularly well-behaved), or read. We used to do a family reading time, but found that we couldn't get very far in the books b/c the boys would bicker and we would have to stop reading to deal with them. We've now returned to individual reading in their bedrooms and this helps settle them down much better. The boys read some to us in books they can read, then we read about a chapter in a book we read to them, we alternate each night (mom and dad) with the kids--I go to Keegan's room and dad goes to Kameron's room, then rotate the next night. The baby goes to bed 30 mins. sooner than the boys.

[Highereducation]

For years dh and I were leave-the-TV-on-as-background-noise people. After dd was born I started paying more attention to the content of what was on, and after a while TV started to bug me. Little by little we watched less and less of it, until the only thing I watched was hockey and the only thing dh watched was MMA. DD was allowed 1 show per day (usually about dogs or dog training), but as time passed I became even less of a fan of the TV and started discouraging any use at all. Now most evenings the TV is silent (Yay!), and I have gained about 3-4 extra hours! Before dd goes to bed (9:00) we usually read, latch hook or do embroidery or crocheting. Once she goes to bed, sometimes I will write or read. Dh and I talk a lot more. We are all usually together in the living room from about 7:00 on.

 

One thing I will say is I have really learned to appreciate the silence. I never realized just how intrusive the television is and how much people have to speak over it, even if the volume isn't on that loud. Our house has become much calmer and less frantic without the constant barrage and competition for attention.

 

I am hoping that this year will be the one when we give up TV for good!

[HRAAB]

We have a TV with VCR/DVD player. We watch movies and documentaries of our choice, play games, put puzzles together, read. During the summer we're outside most hours of the day.

 

** During football season my dh subscribes to ....some satellite thingy... so he can get NFL Sunday Ticket. And, of course, we get all the channels that come with that. I HATE it except for Discovery Health and couple like that. IMO, it's mostly junk and I have control of the remote. When we do turn on the TV then nothing else happens - no reading, no game playing, no conversation. Not what I want for my family.

 

Janet

[Pretty in Pink]

Sometimes we split up and work on individual hobbies. Most times, however, we hang out in the living room together and play games (board games or Wii sports), dh and I often read aloud to the children, sometimes we turn off all of the lights in the house and play hide-n-seek with flashlights. About once a week we watch a DVD with the children. They go to bed at eight and dh and I usually hang out and watch a movie, play Wii sports, work on hobbies, and...um...there's lots of time for teA without the distraction of the boob tube.

[I talk to the trees]

One kiddo, age 8, and no tv here. We read (often pausing to read sections of our books aloud to one another,) play games, or watch an occasional video. Dh often spends the evening in his practice room, so dd and I knit together or scrapbook, or brush the dogs (a never ending chore with 3 shelties.) Dd and I also like to do wii-fit or some other workout together. It's nice to have an exercise buddy to complain with! ;)

 

I think more and more people are realizing that television is such a time-waster, and that life can be so much more interesting and productive without the tube! (Ahem! Now if I could only get myself to give up the computer!)

 

-Robin

[ThelmaLou]

TV/DVD player here, but no satellite. We do watch dvds more often than I'd like, but we are trying to avoid it on school nights. It's not uncommon for us to watch something short when the kids have an evening snack. (Think I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith, Flipper, etc...)

 

After dinner, my husband usually reads to us from a book. Lately, we've been doing lots of Christian biographies. We most recently read about John Newton, Adoniram Judson, and Joni Eareckson.

 

After that, my hubby usually works on Algebra with oldest ds 13, or he helps anyone else who's having math trouble. I usually either read to the baby, play games with the other boys, putter around the house, or take a bubble bath.

 

When math issues get taken care of quickly, my husband will often take the boys for a walk or go across the street to the park. Being the party pooper that I am, I usually stay home to enjoy the peace and quiet.

 

Just before bed, (when everyone's eating snacks and watching a short dvd), hubby and I usually brew some tea and sit on the sofa and alternate footrubs, talking over the events of our day.

 

We *like* to get to bed by around 9:00 or 9:30, but lights aren't usually out until 10:00 or so. My oldest ds and I have been going over to our city's gym/rec. center every morning at 6:00 to exercise, so we're trying to adhere to bedtime a little more strictly these days.

[Daisy]

1. Walks (flashlight walks are fun in the winter).

2. Yard work in the summer or talking with neighbors in the front yard.

3. Read-Alouds

4. Games

5. Talking

6. Builing legos, lincoln logs

7. Individual reading

8. Wrestle with Dad

9. Putter in the workshop with Dad

10. Personal projects, writing letters, etc.

 

 

I guess whatever we do the rest of the day, we continue into the evenings. I've never really thought about it.

 

In the winter, we eat dinner at 5pm and have Family Worship (Bible reading, devotion, Bible memory, & Dad's special read-aloud) immediately afterwards. The kids head to bed by 7:30pm because they want to read for an hour before lights out (we are early birds). So we don't have as much time to kill as you do. After the kids are in bed, Dh and I play card games, do lesson plans or grade papers, listen to old radio comedies, talk, talk, talk.

 

We haven't had tv for 6 years. We don't have games systems and no games on the computer. Eventually, you don't even think about it.

[amy g.]

We do evening chores. If it's cold, we build a fire. One person plays blocks or puzzles with the baby.

 

Mostly we talk to each other.

 

Then I fall asleep...usually around 8:30.

 

My teen and almost teen appear to be perfectly happy with the arrangement.

[Laura Corin]

What do you do at home in the evenings, after supper & before bedtime preparations (baths, family devotions, etc.)?

 

We mostly sit together in the sitting room. I might catch up on emails or come here; the boys and their father read to themselves. I then read in bed or in the bath after everyone else is in bed. No teenagers here: the eldest is 12.

 

Laura

Edited January 13, 2009 by Laura Corin

[Liz CA]

What do you do at home in the evenings, after supper & before bedtime preparations (baths, family devotions, etc.)? (In our house, that would be from about 7:00-10:00 PM.)

 

 

 

Wh have no satellite or cable and can only watch 2-3 channels and DVD's. We get DVD's from Netflix. Sometimes we have some, sometimes we don't. We play board games, craft, read etc.

During the long summer evenings, dh and I like to sit on the patio while ds used to play with with dog, chickens, horse or built a fort(this was his favorite thing to do for years. We have several abandoned forts on the property - he is now 17 and in college.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Liz CA

[laughing lioness]

In the summer we are outside. Every night. Swinging, maybe a bonfire, gardening. It's light here until 10 in the summer and finally cool enough to breathe so we are out. And loving it.

Walk.

Do dishes. Clean up. Read outloud. Computer time. Baths (littles). Music. Videos. Eveyone sits on my bed and we talk (or shove each other depending...:)). Make popcorn. Hang out together.

[Harriet Vane]

Often we are together, playing cards or board games or reading aloud. Sometimes there are urgent chores to do or a child has a specific agenda (like dd wants to plan her birthday party alone or something). It's not really planned, and it's often driven by the kids' requests.

 

We do watch shows here and there--the kids watch once or twice a week at most. I enjoy Masterpiece Theater and Masterpiece Mystery.

[kalanamak]

Swim, run errands (like groceries), the library, the radio, read, google, play a game.

[Caryl]

I really don't know how we would have time to watch TV! It seems like everyone is going full blast here until around 9:00-10pm. Playing, writing, computing, cooking (it's 10pm and we're about to sample my 11 yo first cheesecake), animals (we're also trying out our new electric yard fence to keep in the Pyrenees - a cat just got shocked - the pyrs are wondering what IS THAT THING that is biting them down by the gate!! It's actually pretty exciting to watch the fence arc in the night keeping those wondering dogs home where they belong).

 

We do watch an occasional Netflix. They're especially nice on nights when we're more tired than the kids are.