During the school year, my husband and I have set rules around iPad use for our three kids, ages 10, 8 and 6: none until Friday after school, and then whenever we’re not otherwise engaged in the many activities — track, soccer, baseball — the weekend brings, it’s free rein.
Without those parameters in place come summer, however, and with both of us still working while the kids are off from school, things felt like they were getting a little out of control. Upon wake-up each morning, iPads. Not otherwise engaged during the day? IPad. After-dinner wind-down time? IPad.
I wasn’t much better, mind you. Of course, my phone is also my access to email, work assignments and information from schools and camp. But there was plenty of time after I had checked and responded to those emails I found myself scrolling social media or shopping for things I don’t need, simply because they popped into my head and the phone — and the Amazon app — was within reach.
I decided it was time for a “screentox” — a screen detox. I’m not sure if that’s a real word, but that’s how I presented it to the kids. They would not use their iPads and I would only check my phone at predetermined intervals (I decided on 2 hours) and delete all social media apps plus Amazon. But I wasn’t ready to jump in cold turkey, so before announcing this to the kids I first introduced a strict “no iPads until 3 p.m.” rule one day to see how it went.
It went better than expected. There was no pushback, the kids were happy to see me put away my phone as well and a lovely day was had by all. They did remember at 3 p.m. though, to ask for the iPads back. Still, I was motivated to move forward.
That was a Wednesday. I had planned to begin the official screentox the following Saturday when I would have no work and could dive right in, but as it happened, the very next day, my 8-year-old ran over his iPad with his ATV and smashed the screen to bits. And so, it was that moment the screentox began.
That first day, just after the ATV incident, was met with protest, especially from the culprit’s older sister and younger brother (“Why do weeee have to stop watching OUR iPads because heeeee broke his?”) I did not have a good answer, except to say that’s just “what I decided.” It took about 10 minutes of simply repeating this statement until they relented and all found something else to do.
With a few activities already on the calendar, that day went off without a hitch. The hardest part was the next morning,
With two out of three of our children waking up with the sun, we’d gotten into the habit of letting them have iPads in order to get a few more minutes of sleep. So the next morning, sure as the sun will rise and when it did, they came looking for iPads. But I had put them away and reminded them we were “taking a break from screens.” Which was all good and fine with them, but now I was the morning entertainment. It wasn’t even 6 a.m. and I was reading books, building Legos and making breakfast at an hour that seemed ungodly for eating anything, much less a multi-course meal.
Now I was the morning entertainment. It wasn’t even 6 a.m. and I was reading books, building Legos and making breakfast.
I wish I could say that aspect of the screentox somehow resolved itself over the week, but it didn’t. That was, however, the only downside to the experiment.
The kids stopped asking for the iPads almost immediately except to occasionally inquire when they would get them back. I kept the answer vague, as I didn’t want to set a countdown to the event. I was also nervous I’d cave early.
I didn’t. What I did do: Set up more activities than normal in an effort to distract them, including hosting friends with kids so they would have fun outside of the family, and break out some of the old favorites we hadn’t used in a while like Magna-Tiles and Play-Doh. I also realized that because my phone was for the most part away and out of sight, I was less irritable with their requests for my attention than I would be had I been distracted by my phone. I was more present, and in turn, they were more present. And while I have no data on this, I felt as if they were better behaved in general — but was it because of the missing iPads or because I was more engaged and they didn’t need to fight a phone for my attention?
I felt as if they were better behaved in general — but was it because of the missing iPads or because I was more engaged?
The kids got creative without trying at all. They had a lemonade stand, opened a “zoo” full of stuffed animals, planted a garden and spent more time on the trampoline than they had since we purchased it in the spring. It seemed the moment the option of zoning out was removed from their hands, they just found other things to do.
We kept the evenings packed with events, too. One night we went to a carnival. Another night, we went to the beach and stayed until dark. When the kids went to sleep, instead of watching TV like we normally would, my husband and I sat outside and just talked.
If there was one thing that surprised me most about this experiment it was how little protest came along with it. The second surprise: I'd honestly only given up my phone to set a good example, but I had no idea how liberating it would be to simply put it away. Every two hours on a weekday and not at all on the weekend I checked my email, answered what needed to be answered and put it away again. This always took less than 10 minutes. If I had not been consciously aware of the screentox, those 10 minutes could easily have devolved into an hour of wasted scrolling.
While the kids have been given their iPads back, in the two weeks since the experiment we’ve taken several more breaks — an afternoon here, a day there. Tomorrow we’re getting on a plane and I know they will be on their devices for several hours in flight, so I declared today a day of absolutely zero screens. Which the kids had no objection to, though they did wake me up at 5:45 a.m. looking for an activity. Seems that’s one habit that even a screentox can’t break.