Now that we live in the middle of nowhere, we are in the car for longer stretches of time in order to run errands. Many times as we drive around the metro area, I see the dvd players playing. Is it just me, but I'm not a fan of the car dvd players?
Don't get me wrong, we have a portable dvd player that we use on airplanes or car rides over 2 hours. But I'm not a fan of dvd players that are on from the time a kid gets into the car until they get out. Why? why does it have to be on? So we can talk on the phone, so we don't have to interact with them, why???
This one time last year, we were heading to my parents lake house prior to our road trip to Sioux Falls, SD. I let them watch a dvd since it was in the car, ready if needed for backup on our road trip. I thought. okay special treat. Uusally, we always point out cars, semi's, animals, scenery, etc while in the car. I started to do this and was annoyed at all they were missing in our 40 minute trip to my parents. Plus, I was sad I missed their interaction and usual silliness.
Missed learning opportunites. Missed life experiences. On a recent trip home from the zoo, if I'd had a dvd player going, we wouldn't have these...
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| {photo's courtesy of Avery 5 yrs old} |
2 comments:
No DVD in the car here. I hate those things. We have a portable player, but it stays at home. Or I'll take it with me when I work at the college in the auditorium. Jason will use it to watch movies in bed before he falls asleep. That's it. When I was young, my family went on road trips. We could bring books with us, even portable tape players (this is a *long* time ago after all) if we had them. Often we'd get bored of the book and start looking around. Talking with our folks and with each other. I make my kids do the same thing. We'll play the Find the Alphabet game (I rock at this one!) on longer trips. They'll sit and chat and be goofy with each other. Listen to the van cd player and sing along (it's not loaded with *kid* music either, I loathe kids songs). It's part of the experience, but I also feel it's an important part of life. They need to learn how to entertain themselves without being in front of a screen and having stimulation shoved at them.
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