My parents were very smart – as I was growing up, the TV was in the basement, so you had to consciously decide to go watch something; it was not the audio/visual wallpaper of our lives. This also means that it was not on in the background during meals (when I grew older, I was amazed to find that some families kept a TV going – during dinner – and right near the dinner table!); in my family, dinner was a time to sit & talk with each other about our day.

When my grandfather came for a visit, we moved the TV up into the living room for the duration of his stay (he was too infirm to deal with the stairs), and I remember noticing how much more TV we all ended up watching. It was soooo easy to get hooked; you'd be walking through the living room, your attention would be caught by whatever was on (whether or not it was truly interesting), and 20, 30, 40 minutes later, you'd still be there... it was a bit scary, but a useful object lesson.

The other really smart thing my parents did was talk to us about commercials, explaining that they didn't always tell the truth, and that those nifty toys that looked so wonderful in the commercials could be quite disappointing in real life. It worked: my siblings and I rarely nagged our parents for things we saw on TV; as a matter of fact, when adverts came on, we enjoyed making fun of them.

I have a friend who does something similar; when one of her kids desperately wants something they've seen on telly, they go to the store together to "just have a look" at this fantastic item. Nine out of ten times, the kid sees it's nowhere near as exciting/appealing as it looked in the advert. Brilliant!