Television Control
May 25, 2005 2:12 PM   Subscribe

I've got four kids, ages 8, 5 and 4. I want to limit their tv viewing. Specifically, it would be great if there were an inexpensive remote switch I could use to turn it off.

That may seem like a lame, technical solution, but it's my weekly question and I'm asking it. I would rather not get into a discussion about removing the TV, although I am sympathetic we just bought a 27-inch Toshiba and my wife and I enjoy watching netflixed sitcoms (Monk, Northern Exposure).

So. I'm just trying to brainstorm a cheap way to block access except at specific times, but also retain the ability to easily override. The TV is downstairs, and we are usually upstairs, and periodically the kids sneak downstairs at inopportune times, like 20 minutes before dinner, and then get fussy when we go to turn it off for meals, etc.

I have seen token/timer solutions, but they tend to run around 80 bucks. Thanks for any non-judgemental answers.
posted by craniac to Human Relations (32 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 


Do you have cable? If so, does your provider have parental controls (ala Comcast)?
posted by ericb at 2:30 PM on May 25, 2005


You can "lock down" all channels ... and then "unlock" what the kids want to watch when you want them to watch it.
posted by ericb at 2:31 PM on May 25, 2005


Response by poster: 1. a simple wall timer is subject to manipulation
2. tvbgone might not reach downstairs
3. home automation fails the "simple and inexpensive" test, and would quickly consume my life.

I hope you don't see this as a judgemental answer/question/statement, but... have you tried just telling them what you want to happen, and ask them if they'd be willing to abide by your schedule?

Oh, we've tried this, believe me.

It's probably not possible to do this cheaply, short of locking a simple box around the outlet. But that would require locking/unlocking throughout the day.
posted by craniac at 2:34 PM on May 25, 2005


When my brothers and I were young, we didn't have a television. My parents finally bought one when I was in sixth grade.

We were entranced. Too entranced. One night, in a fit of rage, my father cut the cord. We didn't have a television again for several weeks, until there was something on he wanted to watch.

Being a semi-handy guy, he re-wired the cord so that it was detachable. The cord stayed hidden most of the time.

From that point on, if there was something we wanted to watch, we had to ask our parents for the cord. If they agreed we could watch it, they'd give us the cord. This didn't happen very often.

We searched the whole damn house for that cord and never found it. To this day, I have no idea where they put it.
posted by jdroth at 2:36 PM on May 25, 2005


Re-reading that, my explanation of a detachable cord leaves something to be desired. Here's my best ASCII art representation:

TVTV
TVTV
TVTV
TVTV
TVTV-------------------------=    ]---=    ]
cord plugs into detached cord which plugs into electrical outlet

The prongs that plugged into the detached cord weren't the same as those that plugged into the wall, much to our chagrin.
posted by jdroth at 2:43 PM on May 25, 2005


X-10 type stuff (ie: home automation) is pretty cheap, isn't it? I got a set (enough for two small appliances) for something around $20, I think.

Then just keep the remote somewhere safe.

Though I suppose they could just unplug the TV and plug it right into the wall... You'd have to prevent that somehow.

Couldn't you just make it a rule that they have to ask you before watching? Is it obvious I don't have kids?

Though my parents only allowed TV watching on weekends and us kids obeyed fairly well.
posted by ODiV at 2:48 PM on May 25, 2005


Sorry to jump in with the judgemental crowd, but as has been covered in previous threads on things like internet usage, there is no obstacle a kid can't get around.

The kids ned to learn that X is when television viewing is acceptable, and the rest of the time it is not. If they disobey the (reasonable!) rules, then they're punished. Isn't that how this whole parenting thing is supposed to work?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:50 PM on May 25, 2005


I love jdroth's solution. It seems pretty intimidating, but it just requires some wire cutters/strippers and some electrical tape. Those and the plugs themselves should cost around 15-20 bucks in total, and should take you maybe an hour to complete. I can give you more detailed instructions if you want - email's in the profile - or you can just google it.
posted by muddgirl at 3:13 PM on May 25, 2005


Amazing congruence, my father did the same thing (cut the cord). Eventually I stripped the insulation for about a half inch back and would just jam the bare wires into the wall socket. If they became frayed and accidently touched, scary sparks would result. Then the TV broke and we went without for several years, the result of which is that I started to read (even more) voraciously, which I am sure pushed my verbal SAT score up much higher than would be expected of someone of my intellectual ability (I scored much higher in verbal than math).
posted by 445supermag at 3:16 PM on May 25, 2005


How about supergluing the on-tv power switch so it's non-functional and keeping the remote in a locked / high location? Or keep the batteries out of it.

As far as there being nothing a kid can't get around, I look back on my teen years with the certainty that I "got away with" a number of things because my parents chose to ignore them. Some of parenting, IMNSHO, is not necessarily prevention but just making some things enough of a pain in the ass.

Why should rebellion/defiance be easy?
posted by phearlez at 3:16 PM on May 25, 2005


children pick apart poorly constructed home electrical work and fry themselves.
legal hilarity ensues.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:20 PM on May 25, 2005


Locked cabinet?
posted by elisabeth r at 3:34 PM on May 25, 2005


My kids read like crazy! I just want more control, and let's face it, I'm lazy. I'm going to construct my own token system using a motion sensor outlet and quarters. It's just a means of keeping them off before key family events, and making us all use the tv more consciously. We don't watch it that much to begin with.

My oldest is eight. He's got a couple of years before he whips out the soldering iron. Although his younger brother, five, regularly fixes problems with our PC for my wife, usually through endless experimentation and persistence.

But anyway, keep sending the good ideas.
posted by mecran01 at 4:02 PM on May 25, 2005


The cord idea sounds good, as long as you can hide the cord. Even a lockbox around a timer isn't guaranteed to hold. My parents tried this and my brothers and I broke into it and reprogrammed the thing numerous times. We really wanted to watch those afternoon cartoons.

Do you have cable, and if so could you cancel your subscription? If the reception of the television is bad enough that might prevent the kids from watching it--you could even mess with the antenna to make it worse.
posted by Anonymous at 4:03 PM on May 25, 2005


Depending on how your home is set up, what might work is an actual hardwired switch - one that goes from the tv outlet to 'upstairs'. Half the fun of this would be doing it in secrecy. It'd be an easy rig if you can pull wire.
posted by whatisish at 4:03 PM on May 25, 2005


This looks promising.
posted by xyzzy at 4:04 PM on May 25, 2005


How about putting the tv upstairs? Could be nice to decenter its position in the house in any case.
posted by Pattie at 4:18 PM on May 25, 2005


JD Roth's dad... a man 30 years ahead of his time!
posted by rolypolyman at 4:19 PM on May 25, 2005


Pour some acid in their eyes and watch them grow into Miltons and Borgeses.
posted by ori at 4:27 PM on May 25, 2005


children are cunning.
i'm afraid the only way to win, if you really want to win, will be to get rid of your tv.
anything else will lead to a forced compromise.
posted by archae at 5:23 PM on May 25, 2005


Sounds like a discipline problem. If they "get fussy", spank 'em. If they keep it up, spank 'em hard. That'll take the piss out of 'em. The vinegar, too.

If you let your children walk all over you, they will grow up to be the same assholes you hate dealing with on a daily basis who think they can get away with anything by "getting fussy". You need to nip that in the bud ASAP.

Talk first, but if talkin' doesn't work, then it's a paddlin'.
posted by Eideteker at 6:36 PM on May 25, 2005


While I love the cut the cord/modify plugs idea, I would actually advocate for cancelling the cable and perhaps also moving the TV to your room.

Because it's your TV, and you bought it, and when the kids grow up and make money, they can buy a TV set and order cable and watch whatever they want.

If you're mostly using Netflix, you don't need TV reception anyway. Meanwhile, every 5th or 10th or whenyoufeellikeitth DVD can be something that they want.
posted by desuetude at 7:20 PM on May 25, 2005


Some of these answers are silly. Come on people! Do you want to morph into a highly rareified microcosm of Usenet?

I like the hardwired switch upstairs connected to the outlet idea, and/or removing the tv antenna.


But the truth is, there are times when I *want* them to watch tv for short amounts. So I don't know if I want to use the nuclear option.
posted by mecran01 at 8:02 PM on May 25, 2005


TV upstairs:

My wife thinks it's tacky to have it taking over the front room. Putting it in the upstairs would centralize it. Plus we'd have to get an "entertainment center" that cost more than $10.

x10 tips < ---there's a solution in here somewhere for about $35.br>
Thanks all.
posted by mecran01 at 9:05 PM on May 25, 2005


When I was a kid, we were allowed 1 hour per day, plus our parents could select extra stuff for us to watch (usually documentaries or classic movies). We had to tell our parents ahead of time which shows we wanted to watch (Hercules and G-Force!) and when they were on. If we had tried to watch extra tv, our privilages would have been revoked for a period of time.

I'm not sure if you want to give this type of solution a(nother) try, but I think the key with my parents' approach was that we had to select specific shows for viewing, which made the time self-regulating. We couldn't complain if our mom told us to turn it off after G-force, because that was what we had already chosen. If we complained, she said we could select different shows tomorrow.

Anyway, good luck with it, whatever you chose. I hated it at the time, but now I'm glad that my parents limited my tv watching as a kid.
posted by carmen at 10:08 PM on May 25, 2005


How about TiVo or somesuch? It might work for you because if your children start watching at an inopportune time, they can pause and continue the show later with no penalty, no excuses for whining. It's also great because you can skip all the commercials, which you probably don't want them seeing anyhow (and if they get used to skipping commercials, watching TV 'live' is annoying by comparison). Also with TiVo you can record their allowed shows and make a rule about watching them during tv-watching time only... if you do this reliably, soon they will forget what times their shows are on, and they will come to use the tv for specific (pre-recorded) content that interests them, rather than as an all-purpose anytime entertainment device. In theory.
posted by xo at 12:32 AM on May 26, 2005


One night, in a fit of rage, my father cut the cord. We didn't have a television again for several weeks, until there was something on he wanted to watch.

OH MY GOD JDROTH!
I thought mine was the only family like that.
My father would roar into the house to find us watching TV while it was still light outside (crime). We'd scatter, and come back to find he'd cut the cord. Then he'd rewire it to watch something ... repeat xtimes until the day the cord got too short ... and a white-painted skull & crossbones appeared on the screen.

I still have the love of reading I developed from those days.
posted by Catch at 3:15 AM on May 26, 2005


If you let your children walk all over you, they will grow up to be the same assholes you hate dealing with on a daily basis who think they can get away with anything by "getting fussy". You need to nip that in the bud ASAP.

Hear, hear!

Well said.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:35 AM on May 26, 2005


I tell you what worked for me - I put the TV in the basement. The dark, damp, smelly, horrible basement. I put an old rickety car seat from a 70s van down there to sit on - if you sat wrong it fell over, and there were springs poking out of it for the unwary. The cat box was down there, the noisy sump pump, and lots of dirt and shadows. My children's TV viewing decreased dramatically - they only watched what they really, really wanted to watch, and they would not go down there alone. I swear this worked wonders, without any huge battles.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:57 AM on May 26, 2005


If you can't win battles over the tv, you will be in big trouble when they're old enough to drive, so it's worth putting in some more effort. I know it's unsolicited advice, but when the kids outnumber the parents, it's non-trivial.

There are tv locks.
http://www.time-scout.com/products/index.php?act=tscout
http://www.familysafemedia.com/powerstop_power_plug_lock.html
http://www.lockinventor.com/plug.htm

Get the replacement power cable for your tv, and stage JDRoth's event of cutting off the plug when the tv is used w/out authorization. Leave it disabled for at least a week. Then reinstall with a lock.

When my son was younger, I made sure there were tapes (dvds) available for times when tv was useful but nothing good was on, like a sick day.
posted by theora55 at 9:56 AM on May 26, 2005


Response by poster: Some good advice in here. I've read Jerrymander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and I am involved in Higher Ed, so I understand the whole "books are good" argument pretty well. Basically, I was looking for a cheap remote switch as *one* tool in the fight against TV. I don't think that is the equivalent of mindlessly caving into your children until they grow into violent, illiterate sociopaths, which seems to be a recurring assumption in this thread.

As it stands, I'm leaning towards the following solution(s):

1. purchase dvd recorder, attach it to a separate antenna feed and build a library of stuff worth watching. I like Tivo, but we don't even have cable, so its utility is diminished somewhat.

2. remove antenna from original tv.

3. give kids a weekly tv budget--they can request that we tape a show, or they can pick something that already exists.

4. per #1, follow Pirsig's advice in ZAMM and limit the number of total dvds in the aforementioned library, so that the quality of it gradually increases. Get in discussions about which dvds to toss and their replacements, creating a tiny media ecosystem.

5. Keep in mind the Freakonomic observation that educational tv, along with a lot of other stuff, has no statistical impact on how your kids turn out.


I have a 1999 Celeron 600mhz pc with an empty 80gb harddrive. Is this system hefty enough to use a Hauppage card to record shows? Then I could burn them to DIVX and they could be viewed on my phillips divx dvd player. Plus, more shows per cd.

Thanks again.
posted by craniac at 10:20 AM on May 26, 2005


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