My husband and I had an incident yesterday over something we have discussed many times before. He was watching our children while I was busy and I came to notice that our 5 year old was sitting next to him watching with him a show that had very inappriote dialog. I made him aware of it and he blew up about it and changed the channel. We have talked about it many times and he agrees with me that she shouldn't see certain things and promises to be more careful about it. The show he was watching yesterday was not graphically bad and had she been playing and not paying attention I might have refrain from saying anything. The fact that he let her sit right next to him listening to every word bothered me a great deal. The way he responded to me was just as bad for her to see. This is a very important issue to me and i dont feel i can or should be flexible about this point. Anyone who could give me advice about how to get him to follow through with what he says he agrees on would really be appreciated!!!!!!<br> Anyone with advice on how to get the whole family to pay less attention to tv and more on each other would greatly be appreciated too!!!!!! <br> Other than the obvious,games,it is hard in the middle of winter and with out a lot of extra spending money! I think TV is at the root of many problems right now.<br> Thank-you for any input.

Fed up,<p>I have a book sitting at home waiting for me: "365 TV-free Activities You Do With Your Child". I'll let you know what I think of it (and whether it would be appropriate for "older children" like your husband.<p>I think that it would do you and your husband a great deal of good to cover "The Policy of Joint Agreement", and for your husband to read the Q & A column here on conversation. Slip it in the TV Guide...

Thanks for the reply k! I printed out the conversation just before I posted the question! I'll have to look for that book. I'll be looking forward to your review!! thanks

Here's a couple of additional books to check out:<p>Saving Childhood by Diane and Michael Medved: Addresses the assault on children's innocence from several fronts, including television. Talks about the relationship between TV viewing and objectionable behavior in children. (Perhaps if your husband learns of this relationship, he'll be motivated to change his TV habits.)<p>The Plug-In Drug by Marie Winn. A more statistics-oriented and older book on TV's effects on children. She also has another book called Unplugging the Plug-in Drug that offers help with changing or breaking the TV habit.<p>also, check out Endangered Minds by Jane Healy, which advances the theory that television, videos and computers have caused physiological changes in our children resulting in a more visually-oriented population with lower literacy skills.<p>You might also try reading the Berenstain Bears' "Too Much TV" to your daughter - my 5-year-old loved it, and it effectively explained to her why I don't let her watch movies all the time (we have a video player but no TV).<p>Good luck!