We stopped watching tv for the summer. And it wasn’t that hard.
Our no television summer is coming to a close. We stopped watching tv for the summer and had a wonderful screen-free summer. We spent a lot of time together as a family and a lot of time outdoors. Our oldest has become an avid reader and hit a huge milestone when he started reading the first Harry Potter book. It’s been a really mellow and relaxed summer. Just one big trip and then we’ve mostly been enjoying our new town and having a backyard for the first time. It was a good summer that was made even better by no television.
Back in the spring I had this crazy idea to take our television away for the summer. When I thought about my kids being home more and the incessant requests for screen time that were sure to come from that, I felt defeated. The big black box is omnipresent in their lives and we already struggled to keep its use in check. What if that big black box just went away for the summer? Could our living room be a television free? What if we all stopped watching tv for eight weeks?
My kids were mad we stopped watching tv.
There was some serious blowback from the kids when we told them about the summer plan. Our eight year old was devastated. He really enjoys playing Minecraft and Railway Empire on the XBox and its been a way for him to connect with his peers. It’s also been his way of chilling out and unwinding. The younger two kids love some cartoons on a Saturday morning and were not happy for an eight week break from that. Would I be able to stick to my guns on no tv?
Here’s the thing: the kids got over the loss of the television. It wasn’t immediate but after about a week the younger two – ages 3 and 5 – stopped asking about television or “scream time” as the five year old says. One thing that helped: the tv was physically gone from the living room. Out of sight helped it to become out of mind.
Unlike his brothers, my eight year old never forgot about the television. Some of this is due to getting video game time at a friend’s house over the summer. Without fail, he’d visit the friend for an afternoon and the next day he would be tearful and asking about video games. Cold turkey would have been easier for him but I didn’t want to restrict what he could do at other people’s homes. Still, he had a great summer without the television at home.
We did have some screen time that was planned and unplanned.
As I mentioned, the kids did get to watch television at a hotel in early July when we were on vacation. And they visited older cousins for two different weekends and watched tv at their house. This was all part of our plan so I didn’t feel that we were breaking our rules. We still road tripped without screens.
What wasn’t part of our plan was an extended visit to Vancouver to be with an ill relative. Our eight year old is a sweet kid but spending a good part of the day at a hospital was pretty boring for him. We struck a deal that he would get some iPad time while there. The other kids stayed home with me and we stuck to our no screens. Not ideal but I came up with this plan to challenge us, not torture us.
The kids are playing independently with no tv. Which means I have more time for myself.
There was a Saturday in the middle of the summer when my husband was working and I was on ‘kid duty’ and I had a revelation. The kids really didn’t need me. They were all off playing and reading and no one was looking for my help or assistance. If I wanted to I could dive into something like cleaning out the barbecue or just take a seat and read. Normally to start an activity and assure that I would be undisturbed/able to finish it, I had to turn the television on.
The children are playing for longer stretches and with more creativity. Their play is more elaborate and they don’t lose interest as quickly. They can spend hours playing Legos instead of an hour. My three boys find things to do and amuse themselves without my assistance. They’ll spend the afternoon through to the evening out in the backyard playing games and running laps around our house. Before our tv free summer they would only last thirty minutes if I wasn’t outside with them and encouraging them to play.
My oldest son has also found ways beyond video games to relax and unwind. Now he grabs a book and finds a quiet spot for himself when he needs to relax. He’s also more in tune with the rhythm of our household and the work that is being done. He’s getting better at unloading the dishwasher and is asking about other ways he can be helpful around the house. Is it from the tv being gone or maturity – I don’t know. But I’m thankful for it.
The parents stopped watching tv as well.
Our kids ditching screen time meant the adults stopped watching tv for the summer as well. Bye bye Netflix. I’ve had a few moments where I thought watching a show would be nice. But not having a television has been great for my sleep. No television makes it easy to get to bed early because I’m not tempted to watch just one more Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
With no television in the house I have those relaxing screen free evenings all the wellness magazines tell us are part of self-care. I actually used up four face masks my sister brought me back from Korea – the ones she gave me almost two years ago – just in the last eight weeks. The bath bomb set the kids got me for Mother’s Day is almost finished. Most of my summer evenings have been spent reading, relaxing and going to bed by 9pm. *Note: I’ve started one of those crazy early morning routines to get more writing time in. It works!
One big win when we stopped watching tv is that I read more. I averaged 2 books a week for the summer. Some of this reading time replaced our evening television time but a lot of it was on weekend afternoons. This no tv summer dovetailed nicely with our youngest being a bit more independent. I could sit in the yard and read for a few hours while the kids played. It was lovely. If you’re in a stage of having to keep a very watchful eye on your children let me tell you: it gets better. This is the first time in eight summers that I’ve been able to go to a beach and not have to worry about one of my kids eating sand.
Have we stopped watching tv forever?
In my ideal world the tv is sold and we occasionally watch a movie in our living room with a digital projector. *Note digital projectors are a big financial investment! That’s my dream scenario but I am just one of five people in this household. The other four people may not be quite so keen on no tv forever.
Here are some of my ideas for cutting the television hours drastically for all of us:
Use a restrictive app or hardware on our wireless router. A friend told me that she is using Circle by Disney to set limits on screen time for her kids and it’s worked really well. The hardware attaches to your router and parental limits and usage limits are set by an app for each device in the house. We’ve ordered the box to install it. I think setting this up before the tween years will be helpful.
Move our television to another room. Melanie shared that their television is in the basement and isn’t connected to a cable box. Her kids borrow DVDs from the library when they want to watch something. I was thinking of moving our tv into a closet in the room that we use as an office.
Tell our kids that we are done with having a television. I think the younger kids would be fine. But my oldest… a revolt!
Set up our television occasionally. I remember when I was young my mother would rent a VCR for a weekend and rent a bunch of movies. It was a special occasion and a treat to watch movies at home. Maybe we could recreate the 80s and bring our television out just occasionally.
No video games or tv for 8 weeks has been a success for me too.
One of the long term changes I hope sticks: I’m going to bed earlier and don’t watch television in the evening during the week. I’m going to set up bed times for myself on the Circle app so that I stick with it. Be the change you want to see in the world (or your house), right?
We have one TV in the house. We play a movie once in a while but otherwise it sits unused. TV doesn’t stimulate the brain much and personally I find most things on it boring or overly sensational. Even when a grandparent gave us free Netflix we found we spent more time looking through the garbage to find anything worth watching then actually watching anything. No one here misses it.
Restricting video game time I understand, but I’m sad that you took games away from your older son ENTIRELY. Sounds like that was his hobby that he used to connect with this friends. Games like Minecraft are virtual building blocks with an engineering twist. They can pretty creative, artistic and mentally stimulating. I’m glad you at least don’t punish him for playing at his friend’s house… I had a friend like that growing up and it was really hard to do anything with her because she’d get in trouble for the tiniest things – she ended up pretty isolated and out of touch when she grew up.
I needed to read this! We’re on week 2 of no video games on school days (still gets 20-30 minutes of TV after school). Our son is 8 and really addicted to his games. At least by pushing them off to the weekend, he’s more likely to play them during a play date, which is at least more social than playing alone. I’d love to hear from others with only children– it seems like it would be easier to go screen free if he had someone to play with more often. As it is, he likes to read and build with kapla blocks, but there are a lot of hours between getting home at 3 and going to bed at 8! He used to be so much more creative and enterprising with his time. I’m hoping he gets back to that a little with reduced screen time and that it’s not just a function of getting older.
I have heard from parents of only children that they struggle with screen time because ‘there’s no one to play with’. One friend of mine said she resorted to it because she was so tired of playing for many hours with her son – I totally get that!
I’d love to hear if things change for your son with limited screen time ie. he gets past the boredom. Or if you have a solution. I know other parents would like to know too 🙂
This is very similar to our experience, although with my kids the shift was *immediate*! (Didn’t expect that. Totally delighted!) We did it over the 2 weeks of Spring break and it was bliss. (In our case, we took away the tablet and ipod and only allowed watching the tv with an adult, so they did get some screen time watching Nailed It and American Ninja Warrior…) As you experienced, there was more creative play, more outdoor time, more independent play, and longer stretches of time with any one activity. And in general the kids were much more pleasant to be around! For some dumb reason I allowed the screens again once school started and we were quickly back to the whining for screens, ignoring the rest of the world once they were on, grumping when they had to turn them off, and complaining about being bored the rest of the time. And then this summer my youngest broke her arm and we got especially permissive. Finally after extreme whining and grumping and non-cooperation I called a halt at the beginning of August and the last 6 weeks have been GREAT. Now that school has started we told them that there would continue to be no screens M-TH, but that there would be limited screen access on weekends provided there was no homework or chores to do and all their stuff was picked up. Funny thing is, it’s Friday afternoon and neither of them has even thought to ask for screens… We’ll see how this goes.
Stay strong! We’re back to a bit of screen time and have to set the boundaries hard for our oldest and middle child.
Thank you for sharing your experience with cutting screen time. It’s such a sensitive topic for families and everyone can feel judged. I’d like more honest conversation and support from parents. When I talk to other parents about this I either get a pious ‘we don’t allow any screens’ or “we’ve given up! they can have as much as they want”. Thanks for your honesty!
I know this post is about “to TV or not to TV” and I commented on your post at the beginning of the summer that in my opinion, cold turkey would actually be easier.
But for those of us that are working on reducing screen time, thank you for the info about the time-limit technology. I use the parental settings to limit access to certain programs, or to keep my kids off our computer from 8 pm to 8 am. If we weren’t still living in a small apartment, I would love to keep the TV of the living room. Thankfully, my husband didn’t want a super-sized TV, but it still determines the layout – as Joey said on Friends: “You don’t own a tv? What’s all your furniture pointed at?”
*out of the living room.
As we navigate our way back into screen land, I agree – cold turkey is easier. The rules so far are 4 x 1 hr a week for our oldest of Minecraft/video games (can’t be Monday to Wednesday – they have a 4 day school week). And Friday is movie night for the family. The younger kids are still acting as if there is no tv and seem to have forgotten what the big black box that reappeared in the living rooms is for. I hope it lasts!
Re Friends: hahahahaha! So true.
Your post is so encouraging. I read a book last year “Reset Your Child’s Brain” which talks about this issue. We’ve seen such a difference in the kids since we cut back. But it is easy to fall into watching more and more. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks for the book recommendation. We’ve really seen a difference too. Good luck to us both 🙂
Oh I would love that! My hubby is the big TV watcher in our house. My 8 year old gets 1 show a day and some days she doesn’t want any. I watch a movie at night with my hubby a few nights a week after our daughter is in bed. I don’t think he would ever be willing to give it up, but when we move again he will have the TV in his own space and no TVs in mine.
It’s hard to balance ever family member’s needs/wants. My husband goes through phases of watching tv (as do I). I’m thinking about ‘hiding’ the tv by putting a big canvas over it when it’s not in use.
We have the exact set up you dream of. No tv. We do have a digital projector that we spent about $300 on a few years ago (before that we used old hand me down projectors from my father in law who worked for hp’s projector division before it was dissolved). We watch a movie about once a month. Don’t even have Netflix. I have to say it has a very positive impact on our home life. We read and talk and play a lot more. Want to know what one of the best advantages is? No commercials influencing us. Pair that with the fact that I have no Facebook account and my desire for buying stuff is extremely low. Best wishes to you and your family! Love the blog!
Yeah! Love reading this.
Re no commercials: the kids haven’t really seen commercials unless at a relatives house. We’ve always watched something from a streaming service – haven’t had cable in many years. I totally agree: it really helps us stay oblivious to all those new things we are supposed to want.
Thank you for sharing the dream set up and how positive it has been for your family.
Great you were able to pull this off over summer, and I think it would be a pity to fall back into the old habits.
We haven’t had a tv for decades, but it doesn’t mean we don’t watch anything at all. Our kids (3 and 6) get to watch a 20 min cartoon on our laptop every evening before bed time (we watch with them and don’t watch anything else, either). On normal days, they do not get any other screen time, but on weekends and when we travel, they sometimes get to play on the iPad. For our last vacation, we didn’t even take the iPads along, because their asking for it constantly during trips annoyed us. I think our arrangement mostly works because they have never known anything else.
We actually do own an old projector and occasionaly have a movie night at home (less than once a month, though). If you look for a used projector, it’s not a big investment. We’ve had ours for over 10 years now.
This is nice to hear and kudos to you! I think it would be a pity to fall back into old habits too. The kids have been promised a movie this Friday and not much beyond that.
Thanks for the tip on a used projector.
Love this post. A friend just left me a marco polo and mentioned in passing that her kids don’t have screen time during the school week; just on the weekends. A total light bulb moment, especially as I read everything you said about your kids playing deeper and longer and more independently as a result. Yes, yes and yes.
Regarding the projector, we got one for the kids for Christmas so we can watch our shows on the living room wall and not just on our laptops… It was a big splurge for us, totaling about $100. Then today I saw one for $5 at Goodwill, and someone was giving one away for free on our local Buy Nothing fb group. So- they’re out there! And it means that screen time is special, and the exception not the rule.
Another vote for the second hand projector. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
I really enjoy hearing about how families manage screen time. But woah, it’s polarizing. I’ve been thinking about starting another website just for this topic so that I can explore it more.