I am contemplating what I’ve learned in these 7 days.
As you know, I wasn’t completely screen-free. In fact, I probably was a bit more on the screens than I planned, but definitely less than I usually am. And while the challenge I took for myself hasn’t been 100% successful, I am glad to say that it was for my older daughter.
We did have a lot of fun this week. Just before the week started we got a small table and 2 stools for our daughter to create on. And needless to say, they were a huge hit! Both miss T and miss A were spending time in the play area around the table and stools.
We were also on 3 days holiday during Screen-Free week, so we enjoyed some play in the park when the weather was good!
We practised the alphabet by making letters with crafting foam.
We also read a lot! (We actually always do, especially my husband who reads to both children before bed every night!)
We painted and colored.
And went out to explore places and saw some interesting things, like this traditional Lion Dance
I can’t honestly say that Screen-Free week made a very significant screen time reduction for our daughter though: every day she is full time at the kindergarten and leaves the house before 7.30 am and comes back by 5.30pm. When we get home, she cleans up, has dinner, plays a bit and goes to bed by 8.30-9pm. And during the weekend she is most of the time out with her daddy attending his classes. Her general screen time is barely 5-6 hours a week. It is very rare that it reaches 10 hours.
However, I’ll be honest and say that I am mainly the one who needs to reduce screen time! Screen-free week was actually somewhat liberating and I have come up with a plan of how to organize my blog time and screen time in general. I think that the biggest challenge is not just going screen-free for a week since once it is over we are back to screens again. But rather to learn to be detached from devices and gadgets that interfere with our life. Let’s see how this works out for me.
What do you do to reduce screen time in your house? Do you let your children watch TV and play games on screens whenever or do you have a “schedule”? Share with me!
Glad it was such a useful experiment for you! Unfortunately my son gets quite a bit more screen time, especially now that we have a baby and sometimes it is the easiest way to keep him occupied. I am trying now to put in place a schedule, since otherwise it is too easy to just say, Okay, just one more video!
I know exactly how you feel! It was the same for us first few months. Also, your T is so fewer unsupervised activities can be offered. I felt guilty when A was born sbout a lot if screen time fir T but I just tried to give her to watch more educational programmes.
Leanna @ Alldonemonkey
Glad it was such a useful experiment for you! Unfortunately my son gets quite a bit more screen time, especially now that we have a baby and sometimes it is the easiest way to keep him occupied. I am trying now to put in place a schedule, since otherwise it is too easy to just say, Okay, just one more video!
Varya
I know exactly how you feel! It was the same for us first few months. Also, your T is so fewer unsupervised activities can be offered. I felt guilty when A was born sbout a lot if screen time fir T but I just tried to give her to watch more educational programmes.