Watching TV with my Kids Helps Us Bond

Last New Year’s Eve, no one in my family went to a party or out with friends. Instead, we were snuggled up on the couch in our pajamas waiting for the finale of Stranger Things to start. Across the country, another 15 million people had the episode queued up on Netflix as well. This, I thought, was the way TV is meant to be enjoyed.

These days, my family has made a non-negotiable commitment to sitting on the couch together every night and watching at least one episode of a TV show together. Even when my daughters have band practice or play rehearsal — even when they would rather be on the phone with friends — we have to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls or Ted Lasso, or whatever show we are in the middle of.

In an era where parents ban screen time completely, centering family time around a big screen feels like my own tiny revolution.

In the '90s, TV was strictly by appointment. We watched Full House and Family Matters on Friday night, or we missed them entirely. When it was time for a show to start, everyone in the family curled up on the family room couch, Chex Mix ready. Bathroom trips, showers and teeth brushing were planned and taken care of in advance. Even ordinary weekly TV, like the nightly news, was an event, an activity, our main source of entertainment in a world where we weren’t constantly bombarded with media.

My parents watched the same shows that I did because that’s what was on the TV. It meant that sometimes I had to watch yet another episode of Star Trek, and sometimes they had to watch Joey Potter climb through Dawson Leery’s window for the umpteenth time on Dawson’s Creek. While we sometimes fought over who got control of the remote, it also meant that we had a common shared experience.

We were all on that couch together, and if something came up on a show that needed to be discussed or explained, my parents were right there next to my brother and me. It also meant that we had something to talk about later and inside-jokes that we shared. My family and I can still quote lines from episodes of Star Trek we watched in 1992 and know exactly what each other means.

In truth, the whole country shared a lot of those experiences. I would go to school the day after an episode of Gilmore Girls was on and my friends and I would debate whether Jess or Dean was better for Rory while in gym class.

In most houses today, the living room TV is mostly a decoration. Four people might be sitting in the same room, but they’re all watching different things on different screens.

And I get it. I don’t want to watch kids play with toys or teenage girls try on makeup. When my kids were younger, I really didn’t want to watch the same episode of Curious George for the 15th time, and on the flipside, my teens don’t necessarily want to watch the Beatles documentary my husband is excited to see.

There is absolutely a place for small screens, and I’ve been guilty of handing my kid a tablet when she was a toddler just so that I could get work done. Even now, I’d sometimes rather my daughter watch a show with headphones on, so I don’t have to hear it.

But what are we losing? By giving up that experience of sharing a show on the couch, we are missing such a genuine opportunity for connection. If a TV show is what gets my teenagers to snuggle up next to me on the couch and gives us something to talk about in the car for weeks after, I’m more than willing to watch a show together.