Results from No Screen Time!

At the beginning of spring James and I decided to remove screen time in our home for a minimum of 30 days. We decided to do this to see how it would change the behavior and mindset for our children. We were hoping to bring out their imagination and maybe humble them a little.

When we first told the kids we were going to do this they definitely were not excited. Which we fully expected to be honest. The first week went surprisingly well and we were absolutely shocked. I think it helped that we had the trampoline out that first week. The older kids played on the trampoline, colored, and I kind of forced them to play with the thousands of toys they have in their rooms.

The second week of no screens was not as pleasant as the first. There was a lot of “what can we do?”, “I’m bored”, and the “can I have a snack?” increased significantly. We still encouraged them to play outside and with their toys. We were still hopeful that they would learn how to use their imagination and be creative. As the third week began we started to notice little changes. The first change we noticed was how much better they were sleeping at night. It went from our oldest coming down 3 to 5 times a night before she even fell asleep, with any excuse not to go to bed. After removing the screen time she maybe came down once or twice and then went to sleep after. In the mornings they were easier to wake up, there were less tears and they were motivated and got up with little to no issues. One of the twins used to wake up almost every morning crying about something, whether it was finding a shirt or his eyes being tired.

They began to play together a little and make up games. This was not something that was normal in our house. Even though I have twins, they really fight like 90% of the time, the other 10% they are sleeping. We did begin to run into an issue with the youngest. She is at the age where she really just wants all the attention from mom and dad. We are the type of household that doesn’t believe in holding our kids and giving them our full attention constantly. We just really don’t have time for that and we do have things that we need to do for ourselves. She started to get clingy and the television was something that we were able to put on and distract her for a short time while we got things done, whether it was housework, homework or anything else that needed to be done.

As we were trying to figure out what to do with her, we played with her and the toys she had but it was short lived. We eventually turned on Bluey a couple times for her to watch so we could get the important things around the house that needed done. It was a short amount of time but we still felt like we somewhat failed this challenge we put ourselves in. I never considered myself the parent that has the tv babysit their children. At this point I realized that I somewhat did at times and I couldn’t deny it.

By the fourth week the kids started to slowly ask for screen time back. As James and I had discussed we wanted to make it at least 30 days, but we made it to 28 days. It landed on a weekend and to be honest we were exhausted and just wanted to relax and watch a movie.

The hardest thing with this challenge was actually how much more we were needing to entertain the kids ourselves. When you are a parent and you are constantly on the go and running around, you realize how often you don’t sit and play with your kids. This was a hard pill to swallow because no parent wants to be known as the parents who ignore their kids. So in all we all learned a lesson, us as parents need to play more with them to teach them how to be creative and use their imagination. The kids learned that being bored is normal and a good thing, that playing with their toys is actually fun and not a waste of their time.

Next is learning how to be PATIENT!!