9. Have them help with batch cooking. If they’re old enough to stir, sift, and pour, let them help you with the basics — pasta and pizza sauces, or cookies and cakes. I use icebox pies which require little cooking and can be placed directly in the refrigerator. In addition, it’s a good chance to teach about numbers, fractions, nutrition, and providing for the family.
In summary, television is not beneficial to the development of children and makes many of us lazy. Interacting with your children shows them that life is not always entertaining, and exercising their brain is more important than which Stepin Fetchit-style minstrel show is on television masquerading as reality. After all, it was Zig Ziglar who stated, “Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.”
