Observe How The Window Of Time Gets Longer

You are continually nudging your kids toward creating, inventing, exploring while erecting barriers and limits that best suit your family’s needs. They will not like it at first, but push through it. Set up an agenda for the day. Post it on the fridge. Without work, leisure becomes dull in itself, and kids will simply crave more digital entertainment. With a daily agenda, your kids begin to understand how gratifying it can feel to be a contributing member of a household. If you have a hole in your work schedule, spend it reading or playing a game with your little one. In fact, this can even be a wonderful bonding opportunity for siblings. For older kids, you may have decided that you want to limit their video gaming to an hour per week. For a working parent, it might make the most sense to allow that window during the week while you are working, instead of on the weekend. Either way, we are talking about discrete, defined technology, not a free pass to sit on YouTube unsupervised or play unlimited video games. Risk factors skyrocket after five hours per day.

A Better Future

You can use the studies as a guide, but gauge your kids. You know when they are acting withdrawn, ornery, grumpy, or distracted. If you have a hunch that screen time is playing a role in that, confidently adjust or remove it. But this is true of every type of family. Don’t let shame and guilt lurk into the conversation. The process may not be easy, but you have what it takes to do the job. Assess and change as you need to. Expect friction, expect mistakes, but the time and energy you are investing in your kids is worth it. What if I homeschool? Remember the show Lost? It was all the rage in the early 2000s. The show included a smoke monster, and possibly a traveling island. I don’t recall many details, but I definitely remember the cosmically important button. It had to be pressed every 108 minutes.

So Many People

If the button wasn’t pressed, something awful would happen, like the world would explode, or Taco Bell would stop selling Mexican pizzas. The button would be pressed, and then the timer would start over, until 108 minutes later, when the button required another pressing. Why are we talking about Lost and buttons? Because if you homeschool the big kids while removing all screen entertainment from your littles, you now have your own precious human buttons. Every so often, five to ten minutes initially, you will need to walk over and press the button. Younger kids also have smaller windows of time. The more they play without screens, the longer those time periods will stretch, because their attention spans and perseverance are growing. Observe how the window of time gets longer and longer as the weeks pass. Or you might even miss a button press and a small meltdown will occur. Lord knows I spent many a homeschool lunch break crying into my Lean Cuisine. Homeschool mom Megan shared that one morning during her family’s detox, she was babysitting another small child, in addition to her two toddlers. Before our detox, I thought that would be the easiest way to keep them occupied while I teach, she said. During her detox, Megan turned off the shows and kept the iPads away.

For Once In Your Life

Don’t you love those mom wins? The pleasant surprise along the digital detox journey is that the friction and stress will become reduced as you do the difficult work up front. This is another valuable lesson for your kids. Soon they see that honing skills and delaying gratification pays off. Soon you will notice that your tiniest pupils will have an attentional readiness you weren’t expecting. All because you did the hard but worthwhile thing. You go, Mom and Dad! What if my family is on a budget? As you enter detox mode, you will likely find that your kids begin to rediscover the games, toys, and supplies already in your home. That was true for our family, and for many families who detoxed and reported back their results. Which toys encourage kids to mindlessly consume tech? Which put children in the position to create and explore? It may be natural for your child to want to paint the walls of your home with nail polish. But that doesn’t mean we should allow or encourage that desire. By the same token, we shouldn’t simply accept our kids’ tendency to binge video games or TikTok scrolling. There is another way. I urge parents to educate desire in their children. Cultivate the good, steer away from the less desirable. When your kids dream up their birthday list requests, when Grandma asks what they hope to receive, help them! They might think they would like the newest Grand Theft Auto game, but by gently reminding them, You will not play that game in our house before hell freezeth over, you can then pivot to other, different ideas. What gifts will continue to serve your child well throughout the year? It’s a highlight zone. Highlight zones are fantastic, so long as we remember that is what they are. Remember, for most of history, kids have not had access to any addictive screen diversions. Create a culture in your home that shows your kids they don’t have to keep up with the Kardashians. Almost half of the world’s population lives on less than 5.50 per day. Take a breath, stay in reality, and get back to basics. What about during emergencies like, I don’t know, a worldwide pandemic, for example? Our kids’ school moved online, so I was able to see them more often throughout the day. This is not to say there wasn’t friction. Oh, heavens, do not misunderstand. Sibling fighting was still a thing, but so was bonding, football on the lawn during lunchtime, unrushed mornings, and less pressure to finish the laundry because, well, sweatpants. I was grateful that these numbers didn’t apply to us.