I’ve heard about it for years, but ignored the temptation to try this not-so-new behavioral technique. I actually thought it to be quite expensive, extreme, and potentially damaging to my children. Though the idea intrigued me. But year after year, I resisted and my husband was in agreement with me. That is, until this weekend when he announced we were getting cable.

Cable? At first, I had mixed feelings about the service that I knew would not only suck away precious dollars, but time and productivity as well. Over the years we avoided the cable monster, kept our money in our pockets, and lived quite well without it. Oh, sure we heard about wonderful channels and shows on the Discovery or History channel, and the kids loved visiting our neighbors to watch Sponge Bob (which I managed to keep my three older kids from viewing.) But we were happy with PBS and going to a hotel to watch cable or visiting grandparents was a treat, not an every day occurrence.

Did my kids feel deprived? Maybe, but we rarely had time to watch tv anyway.

That all changed this weekend when they probably sat glued to the television for twelve hours at a time and I have to admit, I didn’t dare pull them away. Everyone was occupied. No one was fighting. And the house was soooo quiet. There were no conflicts to mediate or parenting for that matter. I thought, WOW! This has got to be the BEST child behavior techinque EVER!

Then I woke up or should I say, looked up and became glued to the HGTV. All the fears I once had about cable hit me in the face. The shows just such you in and before you know it you’ve wasted hours. Hours! Plus, the commercials and shows are very inappropriate for little eyes. If we keep cable, I will have to learn the child friendly channels and avoid flipping the channels while little, vulnerable eyes are watching. Thirdly, cable is like a drug. While the kids are watching the shows life is good. They’re riding high, feeling fine, and life is breezy. But take the drug, er…cable away and tell them it’s bedtime, they’re like a junkie coming down from a high, looking for their next fix. And a part of me is so desperate to keep the peace that I’ve caved and let them have one more hit, er show.

Now I know this is a holiday weekend and they deserve hours of mindless tv viewing for working so hard to get into our new home, BUT what I’m afraid of is will they realize come Monday things will return to normal despite the fact we now have cable? Will they realize that just because Josh and Drake and The Suite Life is on ALL THE TIME, that doesn’t mean they get to watch EVERY episode? And will they realize that bed time will be back to normal? I hope so!

So tell me, do you have cable/DISH/DirectTV? Why or why not? Honestly, I don’t think the pros out weight the cons and it’s only been 24 hours since we got ours hooked up!

And don’t get me started on how I feel about the televisions in cars! I’ll save that rant for another day!

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