In-Car Entertainment Systems: Yea or Nay?
Early in my automotive journalism and parenting careers, I had this grand “no-DVDs-in-the-car” stance. (I’m pretty sure I was still making my own baby food back then, too — ha!). Then I took a couple of road trips with my two toddlers in a test car with a DVD system, and I became a convert after an “Angelina Ballerina” DVD performed wonders by diverting an in-car tantrum. My sister-in-law still likes to bring up my change in policy to get a laugh at family get-togethers.
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Now that my “babies” have entered a new stage in life, I’ve changed tunes yet again. My freshly blended “Brady Bunch” family is comprised of my daughters, ages 14 and 12, and my stepdaughter, age 10. Today, technology inundates practically every facet of our lives. My oldest got an iPhone when she turned 12, worked on an iPad for all her middle-school classes and is now required to have a laptop for high school. Her Spanish seminars use Google Hangouts, she Face Times with me to keep me up-to-date on all the latest teen goings-on while I’m on business trips, she choreographs dances using an app to catalog her ideas — and the list goes on and on. My other two girls listen to music, play games and watch movies on their devices when traveling overseas to visit grandparents in South Africa. Our family’s weekly dinner menu and grocery list are accessible by all of us, online calendars are used to manage three kids’ schedules in three different schools in three different cities — and once again, the list seemingly never ends.
I’m sure many of you can relate to the fact that having dedicated time to talk to my kids, with full attention on both sides, is a rarity. The best chance of that happening these days is in the car … without a DVD entertainment system.
When I pick my oldest up from high school, we spend about an hour in the car together driving to my other daughter’s school and waiting in the carpool lane. This is when I get a full monologue about everything that happened at school that day. Mostly I just listen, reveling in the fact that my teenager still wants to share with me (I’m assuming that won’t last forever), and she even occasionally asks for my advice. Once the other girls are in the car, I listen in while they share stories about all their “girl drama.”
Undoubtedly, when we’re in a test car with an in-car DVD entertainment system, the wireless headphones go on and the chatter stops. To me, the instantaneous change in demeanor is alarming — enough so that when I was shopping for our current family car, I went out of my way to find the model and features I wanted without a DVD entertainment system. This saved my sanity and kept some money in my wallet, too.
There’s a time and a place for a DVD system, and with older kids it’s hard to police the times and places for their use. I’ve found it easier to just skip the system altogether. On longer trips, when I do allow my girls to plug into a movie, they get to use their own devices, which minimizes the arguing over which movie they’d have to watch together.
How about you? What are your family’s feelings and policies on in-car entertainment systems? Have your feelings, like mine, changed over the years as your family has evolved and changed? Tell us in the comments section below.
Cars.com photo by Kristin Varela
