Putting my kids to bed is a special privilege that I take very seriously. Apparently, I'm in the minority. In fact, our friends down at the Public Broadcast System have created a program to go on their satellite channel Sprout that is supposed to put your kids to sleep for you.

What are we doing? We are slapping our children against the TV screen, letting the PBS goons take over bedtime. I agree fully with Donald Shifrin, whom the article fails to mention as chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee that studies TV and children,

Bedtime is a time when questions come up, a debriefing of sorts for kids to close out their day and reckon how it went, even for a toddler. You never know what they're going to bring up, because bedtime is a time when the parent discovers what's important to their child. It's not a time to pick up the remote and tell your kid to tune out! That's the last thing a parent should be doing! Instead of watching Barney the infernal dinosaur, reading a book -- even one about Barney -- is infinitely better because the parent gets to participate fully with their child and they can talk about the characters and what they're doing. TV never lends itself to that. TV is sitting there... watching... watching...  watching. What a missed opportunity!

If you've read my blog regularly, you know that I have a song for each of my children and I sing it to each child I put to bed. It is a final reminder to them that I love them, that I enjoy them, and that I care about them. It is special. It is sacred. I hope all parents experience such moments and hunger for them so much that they refuse to let some glowing box barge in to tell them "I luv uuuu, uuuu luv meeee..."

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