As a father of two children, education is important. While I don’t profess to have the teaching skills necessary to educate my boys, I do my best to encourage the basic fundamentals of learning–reading and writing.

While I try to strike a balance between school and home, I also encourage them to spend time on their learning skills through educational television, interactive video games that challenge them to use reasoning skills, and additional fun learning materials such as math puzzles, logic games, and interesting reading.

While I don’t discourage or ban the children from watching entertainment, such as movies and cartoons, I try to harmonize the viewing to include a balance of learning and fun. There is plenty of learning material on a variety of subjects available to watch on television cable channels such as TLC, The Discovery Channel, Knowledge Network, History Channel, and others, yet at the same time I don’t want them to consider television as only a learning tool. There’s just as much opportunity to watch cartoons or sports or teen programs.

While I don’t think it’s necessary for parents to pound the learning into their kids, there are plenty of ways to nurture and encourage them without having it appear like another lesson, which certainly they get enough from in school.