Screen-Free Week

My friend, Alli, pointed out something interesting on Facebook a while ago. There is a thing called Screen-Free Week. They are encouraging families to unplug for their children for 7 days.

Starting April 18th through April 24th our family is going screen-free.  I mentioned it to my husband first, he was up for it. Then I brought it up to Zachariah. I figured he’d be against it. It means no TV, no movies, no video games, no computer. He said “Yeah, can we start tomorrow?” I was shocked. But then I realized that I told him it was a challenge. He’s at an age where he loves to beat us at challenges. Want him to get dressed quickly in the morning, tell him there is no way he can get dressed before you. He will, and he’ll laugh and love it. Win/win for me.

So, we’re doing it. We’re taking the Screen-Free challenge. We’ve gotten pretty lazy about having the TV on a lot. And I let him play video games a lot too. (I’m embarrassed that I’ve let this happen anyway.) This will be a great time for us to focus on other things that need done. We’re gearing up for kindergarten registration and screening here anyway.

The biggest challenge will be for Matt and I. But I know it will be a great way to get Zachariah involved in more things. He needs to keep working on writing his alphabet and cutting out shapes. We can sing songs and make puppets. He loves crafts, and I haven’t done any with him in a while. Unfortunately the weather will be bad or it would be great to get outside more. If we get a nice day, we’ll go to the park or take a walk. Otherwise, we still have the YMCA. We can go swim once or twice. There are many options. And it will help us to gear up for being out and about when the weather is nicer.

For us, Matt will have to be at his computer at work…it’s his job. But he’s not home, so it won’t affect Zachariah (the main focus of this). I will be away from the computer during the day. If I get a chance I might check messages first thing in the morning or in the afternoon (if he needs rest time). Matt and I will both struggle to be away from our computers after supper. I think that will be harder than not watching television. But we’re powering back up after Zachariah goes to bed. We’ll still watch TV and use our computers. It will force me to balance my time online better though. I will only have a short amount of time each day to keep up with email, Facebook, Twitter, and my blogs. I’ll have to prioritize, but I know I can do it.

We all can do it. We need this. We need to refocus and not rely on the TV and computer as much as we do. How about you? Can your family go a full week screen-free? Will you take the challenge with us?

Even if you can’t do it this particular week, maybe you can try it another week…or 3 days or 5 days. Just give it a try. I’ll be blogging about out journey and the fun things we will replace our downtime with on here. I’d love to hear your comments and ideas as well. And good luck to everyone else who is participating.