This idea to have a screen free summer has been kicking around in my head for months. I’ve talked to my husband about it repeatedly and he recently agreed we are going to give it a go. When my oldest is out of school at the end of June, we’re moving our television and the XBox to the basement. The iPad will be stored on a very high shelf in a closet. And things will stay that way for eight weeks. Or so I hope. I’m writing about it here to keep myself accountable.
Why do I want a screen free summer for my kids?
One of the reasons I want a screen free summer for my kids is because I still have the all wielding power to do so. As I have been more exposed to older kids recently, like those in high school, I see that you don’t have as much control over this stuff as they get older. So I’d like to get this XBox free time in now, to have a summer spent outdoors adventuring and making use our new to us backyard. In that wistful way, I feel like these years with young kids are going to be over so fast. And I’d like us all to get as many memories and good times out of them as possible.
To push me to engage more with my kids. This one is many fold: I both want to be teaching them things and having fun with them. Often, particularly in the winter, they get screen time because I need them all to sit and be still. It’s usually when I’m getting dinner ready and I can’t be refereeing the late in the day feeling cranky fights that their play often devolves into. I’d like to break that habit and have them help more with dinner or even sit at the dinner table and do an activity if I’m doing cooking that they can’t participate in yet. I’d also like to help them enjoy our backyard more.
To find new ways for my oldest son to decompress. My oldest is a unique kid and playing video games or having some time on an iPad have been helpful ways for him to decompress at the end of the day or calm down in high stress situations. It’s also been used as motivation and reward for him. The lovely professionals he works with have all told me that using screen time as a motivation and reward is fine. But, I would like to find other ways for him to destress and hit the chill button so he has other tools in his pocket for when life feels overwhelming. I know sometimes drawing can be a way for him to escape and so can building toy train tracks and Lego. I hope to add an outside activity to that arsenal of de-stressers this summer.
To get my three year-old to stop asking for the television. This kids is relentless. No matter how firm we are around television time he constantly asks. As in, I wake up to him bringing the television remote to me in bed and asking if he can watch tv. So hopefully the television disappearing will be a good reset for him.
Our Rules for a Screen Free Summer:
- They’re allowed screen time at other people’s homes. So if they are having a playdate/hangout and their friends want to play video games, they’re allowed. This mostly applies to my oldest but his younger brothers can also watch a movie if one is on at their cousins.
- If we’re travelling they can watch something on an iPad or in a hotel room. I don’t anticipate this happening much as we are planning a low-key summer with a lot of time at the nearby lake and playing in our backyard.
- I’m thinking about allowing some screen time on days it rains. We have really lost our Vancouver rain mojo since moving to the mountains. It rarely rains here but when it does, wow, people want to cancel all outdoor activities. As in, it’s raining so no soccer practice. So my tentative rule is on a rain day they can watch one movie.
Our summer schedule involves part-time daycare/summer camps so, for full transparency, I’m not facing down a stretch of eight weeks with just me as the gatekeeper and leader. And that helps. I know for eight hours a day two to three days a week, the kids will be kept busy without any screens while I’m working. And the days they are at home I won’t be working at all so there won’t be any “put a movie on, I have to send something in by four o’clock” which I’m sure other work from home parents can relate to.
Will the parents be going screen free? Sort of. We still need our laptops for work but, just like the kids, we won’t have a television to watch in the evenings. Right now we watch two thirty minute television shows or half a movie a few nights a week. It doesn’t sound too challenging to replace that with reading or sitting in the backyard to unwind.
Are you frustrated by the amount of screen time your kids get? My friend Maia told me about a great screen time app called the Circle app. It limits the amount of screen time via your internet router – you don’t have to install software on devices. If your kids are watching too much tv or you want an app to limit time on the phone, check it out. In the fall I’m going to install it for my kids.
More about limiting screens on the blog:
Have you ever, or do you always, not allow your kids to have screen time? We’ve done some reset weekends and even a two week stint no screens. It is more work for me but my kids quickly start amusing themselves in more creative ways.
Our TV is always tucked away in the basement and you can only watch things on it via computer or DVD player. No cable. No Netflicks. We take videos out of the library. We have one video game the girls can play and we play PokemonGo together as a family. That’s it for screen time. The girls will often watch a movie on the weekend or a couple episodes of something (currently they are into Pokemon, ScoobyDoo and Fraggle Rock) but once that’s done there isn’t any channel surfing going on. I’m not changing it for the summer but we are about to go away for a month and most of the places I rented don’t have wi-fi or, I think, a TV. It will be an interesting month (mostly for the parents). Having our TV out of the way makes a big difference. I find when we go to houses where it is the center of a room the girls are sucked right into it.
Our kids have little screen time. My oldest craves it like your youngest (and it helps to calm her down, like it does for your oldes, although she has a really hard time turning it off). I will let them watch “some shows” on our computers on the weekends. Usually only 3 max in one day. Sometimes we’ll watch movies or shows together. Sometimes my oldest will be allowed to play a game on my phone. But we really limit any screen time and push them to play outside, create, read. Like you, they’re allowed to watch when with friends or family. If traveling, we might turn on PBS in the hotel room. But we don’t even have screens in the car. (When we got a van – used – I was adamant about no DVD screens.) This summer, I will probably let my oldest watch 1-2 shows (30-60 minutes) during the day. I have memories of watching the Price is Right on summer weekdays. Such a treat! No screens has been easier to do now that is warmer and my kids will spend hours playing outside.
I think I have to be careful sometimes to not be too strict. I want my kids to have good computer and media skills, so I’m slowly helping my oldest (who can read) learn how to navigate the Internet and YouTube safely. I also want to find some computer games that are fun and help you learn. At some point I imagine getting a family computer that kids can use for schoolwork, but placed somewhere that we can keep an eye on things. I’ve been listening to discussions around social media and smartphones, storing away information for the future teenage years. Right now, I’m content to keep my kids playing, playing, playing. And reading!
I was also adamant about no entertainment system/screens in our minivan. Not only because I didn’t want the kids watching stuff but because I think those ‘extras’ are built to break and be an incredible hassle to repair. I think too far ahead: we’re buying a two year old car and I’m thinking about ten years from now when we go to sell it and they want to haggle over the price because the DVD player no longer works or the video screen is cracked. Ugh.
I think this is a great idea for parents and children a like. I find that now a days it is way easier to get sucked into a screen. When I was little, there was nothing on in the afternoon so you had to go do other things. Now there is tv shows for everyone all times of the day making it harder to distance yourself from it. Great challenge and a doable one!
We do very little screen time right now – the exception is watching baseball games, I definitely found dramatic personality changes quickly after cutting out the dreaded Paw Patrol. At the same time we stopped iPad educational apps too, there was never a difficulty turning it off, but we just found our eldest to be more difficult to interact with for hours afterwards.
Maybe that iPad will stay high on the shelf?
Kudos for giving yourself this challenge. I’m always in favour of as little screen time as possible though, as we only introduced it a few months ago when she turned 2, we haven’t had the need for a “ban” yet. I find in the weeks that my husband is home, she has very little screen time because there’s always one parent to take her to the park/read to her/play with her, etc. In the weeks that I’m on my own, it’s my saving grace for showers/meal prep. I do find that the more I offer it, the less effective it is, so I do try to keep it to just 30 min. in the morning (for showering) and 30 min. in the evening (for dinner prep). One hour/day initially sounded like a lot to me, but when I consider that I’m engaging with her for the other 11 hours that she’s awake it seems totally reasonable. Good luck!
Thanks, Kendal. And yes, I can see that solo parenting does make for more opportunity to use screen time (I really know it has for me!). It’s been nice to read so many different strategies and perspectives on kids screen time as it’s such a hot topic.
I think this is AWESOME! I think it will be an awesome lesson of how “fasting” from things helps us to recalibrate and appreciate other things…this is inspiring!
Your use of the term fasting caught my eye. My husband and I have been practicing intermittent fasting for about a month. We have an 8 hour window for eating which usually means skipping breakfast. We hear about it on a podcast about longevity and health. What I have found interesting is that it’s made me think about food a lot less. Perhaps my kids will feel the same way about screens when they fast? Also: I stopped fasting for three days when I was away and quickly saw I thought about food way more.
We don’t have cable, I own a television and don’t mind her watching an old film or PBS shows I grew up with. I don’t own an IPad and never will because I see how much my child loves her Godmother’s IPad and the games, coloring and all those delicious and fun apps. She is only six and hasn’t had much exposure to video games so when I gave her this math “game” that teaches, addition, subtraction etc…she seemed satisfied. So now she is allowed to take that anywhere, lol! Eventually, I know she will catch on and I don’t know how I will handle limiting screen time. I just try to stay off the phone as much as I can. I do constantly reach for it more as a camera than anything else. But I have tried to limit my photos and videos. I think if she doesn’t see me on a device she is more likely to think she doesn’t need one? At least that is my hope. But there are times we just want to sit side by side and watch something fun for hours, it’s the best treat!
Tera: think you’re right that if your child doesn’t see you on screens much they’re less likely to be interested in it. My kids will be engaged in something and then see me answering a text message on my phone and beeline over. So part of our screen free summer will be me leaving my phone at home or plugged in in another room as much as possible.
Good for you that you are keeping your daughter green on these things. Our eldest was/continues to be pretty unsavvy with what kids at school want/ask for. Not sure how much longer that will last!
Good luck lovely! Very good plan. I’m sure it will be tough but worthwhile.
Thank you!! 🙂
My girls are 13 and 10 yrs old and they only get iPad access when we fly cross country or internationally which keeps it new and exciting. (About 5x per year since we are expats living overseas) They never ask for it because they know it is only for long distance travel and killing time in airports or on long drives. They have to take turns (30 minutes) which makes it a sharing activity and if there are any squabbles, it simply goes away.
Simple rules which have been the same for years. They have no screens during the week, but we do watch a movie together as a family on the weekend with popcorn and treats which makes it special. Their school homework is on a MacBook and after that is finished on the weekend, they have 30 minutes free time. Keeping it simple works for us and eliminates the daily squabbles about limits.
As a teacher, I can assure you that limiting screens in favour of outdoor play, art, reading, baking, Lego, building forts and dress up will benefit your kids. There is no substitute for creative play. It brings out the best in all of us. When they need to chill, reading, drawing, music, and Playdoh can help them relax. I’ve observed this in my own kids and countless others over the years.
It’s kind of like ice cream….. it can be heavenly as a treat, but it does you no favours if stuff yourself daily. Best of luck this summer! Get outside and enjoy it!
So true it’s like a treat – rarity makes it taste better. Thanks for sharing your screen management with older kids. I think reading how different families manage this sometimes tricky activity is really helpful.
When we moved to our new house 10 years ago, we didn’t bring the TV with us. We lived without the TV for about 5 years because I felt the kids and I were all addicted to it and unproductive because of it. My children would nag me if I tried to limit TV time so just not having one was easier. This experiment didn’t last forever. We ended up watching movies from the library or going to Grandma’s if we wanted to watch something. But in the end, I think we were able to find more fun things to do, like build forts out of sheets, read books, build with Legos, play cards, and go outside more. In the summer, we could just put our feet in the little kiddie pool and chill out. I thought it was a better way to live. Since then, we have allowed TV back into our life but it isn’t the first thing we run to! Enjoy your experiment. I think you will love it!
This is so great to hear. We didn’t have cable television for most of my high school years and we just watched VHS movies on the weekend. I think it was great for making my siblings and I avid readers.
We’re kind of the opposite! We have strict screen time rules during the school year (1 hour of video games on non-school-nights, and an occasional movie or PBS show) because I want them to have as much outside time as possible when they’ve been sitting in school all day. In the summer we relax our rules a bit. Video games are still only an hour on Fridays and Saturdays, but we use the summer as an opportunity to watch more family-friendly movies together since there’s not much time for that during the school year. We watch a lot of old classics or even 90s movies that the kids haven’t even heard of. 🙂 Good luck with your experiment! Taking something away works better if you have something to replace it with, but most kids won’t complain if there are popsicles and sprinklers involved. 🙂
Hahaha. They are obsessed with popsicles since the summer weather hit and their post dinner activity is usually a popsicle and playing in the backyard.
My oldest was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome, and ADHD when he was 10. For self-soothing when everything is too much for him he likes to fish. Even if he can’t make it to the lake he’ll pull out his fishing pole and practice casting it in the yard. He started lifting weights when he needed to decompress a few years ago. We started with low weights until he mastered correct form and then started progressing from there.
When he was 10 we got rid of the TV for seven months. He rarely used the computer at that point in time unless I had an assignment for him that was computer based. The oldest will be 18 at the end of the summer, the younger two are 9 & 7.
We have tried many things over the past seven years. Currently, we let them have unlimited active screen time after their school work and chores are completed. If they’re creating something or playing a game they can do that to their heart’s content. If they want to veg out and watch online videos, movies or shows those are limited to 2 hours a day. This works well for us.
Amy: thank you for sharing here. It is so helpful for me to hear from parents of unique kids that are older than mine. That perspective you have is so appreciated. It is really comforting to know other parents try many different methods and schedules for screens, etc.
I think you’ll do well. It’s easier to cut it out completely than to parcel out a small increments daily, in my opinion – no begging for just 1 more show, 10 more minutes of game time . . .
I also find that my son uses screen time to unwind . . . until it winds him back up and I wish we didn’t have a wii u! Also as apartment dwellers, I’ve come to rely on screens to provide the thing they are most often criticized for – keeping my kids (relatively) still so the people under us have less to complain about.
I agree! Around here the total ban has been much easier than limiting it every day. Our library periodically does a screen free week and when we last participated it was pretty noticeable how much simpler things were. No questions, no nagging or whining, etc etc. Our babysitter commented on it, too.
I like this idea! And I like it for myself, too. I am on my phone way too much; most of it is unnecessary.
Melissa: yes, our screen time when we lived in an apartment was often to prevent them from tearing the place apart 🙂 This vote of confidence for a complete ban is much appreciated.