Move away from that television set

The nonprofit group TV-Free America has designated this national Turnoff Week, encouraging families to replace TV time “with activities that lead to more literate, productive lives and engaged citizenship.”

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When my 4-year-old twins were younger, they loved to flip through “Sam’s First Word Book” and name the items found on its pages: There was a key, a door, a diaper, a puzzle, a camera and so on.

Often, Zachary and Maggie Rose correctly identified the picture. Sometimes they were wrong. But there was one page that had them so stumped they didn’t venture a guess.

It was the one depicting a TV and remote control.

In our home, this made sense: The TV and remote control had been sent packing a dozen years ago.

Be assured that my wife, Bridgett, and I lay no “holier than thou” claim on this front. Though we have successfully stiff-armed TV, we liberally crisscross the Internet world. And we turn to outlets such as YouTube to catch enough snippets (such as the debates among Democratic presidential candidates) to get a sense of what’s going on.

Yet choosing to go without TV has been the single most formative decision we have made in raising our children.

We invest our family time in old-fashioned pursuits such as reading books, playing with blocks, putting together puzzles, playing hide-and-seek, coloring, playing musical instruments and, to quote Zachary, “being rough with Dad.”

Though our careers intersect with the broadcast media -- I am a newspaper reporter-turned-media strategist and Bridgett an accountant in the film industry -- our work has not been harmed by our lack of TV. In fact, the biggest test for me came in October 2004 when my beloved Boston Red Sox won the World Series. I ended up sauntering around an electronics store to watch.

When people learn of our TV-less status, their reactions generally fall into one of three camps:

“Good for you! I could never do that.”

“I only watch the History Channel and the Discovery Channel!”

And . . . “How do you manage to function in everyday American life?”

There’s something in that last question that strikes me as both self-justifying and accusatory. Not only are we kooky, the question implies, but we are also harming our children by sheltering them too much from “reality.” Well, one dose of reality, administered about a year ago, was enough for us.

When Bridgett was working on a movie shooting in the area, she would occasionally take the kids to the office and plant them in front of some “child-appropriate” TV programming as she tended to her job. In as little as 30 minutes, Zachary and Maggie Rose would degenerate into zombies, eyes glazed over and completely drained of energy.

Those episodes redoubled our conviction that television -- yes, even “good television” with wonderful, nonviolent, educational elements -- is not nearly as good for children as old-fashioned, here-and-now contact with people.

It’s no substitute for the life they can experience firsthand.

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Matt Baron owns a public relations and media services company. He lives in Oak Park, Ill.