I'm not talking about home alone (and I think there are a lot of people who would disagree with you). Even in the house at the same time, if you're not in the same room, it can be really hard to control.

Oh, I REALLY don't think kids should have tvs in their rooms.

Oh, I REALLY don't think kids should have tvs in their rooms.

bahhahaha (cause uphill battle probably in most places). But yeah. I totally agree.

My friend who has a 3rd grader has said no TV and no computer in his room unsupervised, which is pretty reasonable in my head but probably pretty unusual.

One family I babysat for had this kids remote that just had a power button, volume buttons, and about eight channel buttons which the parents set to Nickelodeon and Noggin and PBS and other kid-friendly channels. They put some sort of guard over the channel-changing buttons on the actual set, and kept the regular remote somewhere out-of-reach when the parents weren't watching with the kids.

It's all so crazy to me. But then, I've never lived anywhere with more than one TV, even when I had four roommates.

Not so much--my brother and SIL have just the bigscreen in the living room, and the computer in the boys room has no internet hookup at all. In fact, after a few transgressions, the 15-y.o. nephew has been banned from the internet completely, other than school-related stuff done while a parent is in the room.

One family I babysat for had this kids remote that just had a power button, volume buttons, and about eight channel buttons which the parents set to Nickelodeon and Noggin and PBS and other kid-friendly channels. They put some sort of guard over the channel-changing buttons on the actual set, and kept the regular remote somewhere out-of-reach when the parents weren't watching with the kids.

Whereas I let Emmett watch a little bit of Foxy Brown the other day.

His reaction? "That is SO cool."
Me: "Yeah, well. Pam Grier."

Unfortunately, I forgot about the particular vengeance at the ending and had to rapidly skip over to the end over his protestations.

Eh, I had a teevee and cable in my room when i was a kid, and I could read anything I wanted to read.

My brother did not.

I also was given a car when I was 16. My brother had to borrow mom's car, the keys were given only after a long discussion about where he was going and who with.

I was uber-responsible and scored good grades, my brother not so much.

Hard to make any hard and fast rules. Depends on the kid.

I have things to say about television & right wingers & whatnot but I need your all help! My BF is preparing a writing submission to a rather well-known comedy uh, thing. He has to include a cover letter, and we are both fairly clueless about what such a cover letter should look like. Does anyone have any suggestions or can point us to exemplars?

Allyson just started that craxy different things work for different people talk again.

Don't we have a rule about that?