Since the pandemic, screen overload for kids is much rued by parents but a harsh reality. I have constantly been finding alternatives in the form of books, board games, sports activities etc. for my grade-schooler son. But on average he still ends up spending more than 2 hrs. every day with TV, watching over stimulating cartoons.
So recently during his summer holidays I challenged him to spend a day without watching TV and sure he did so. He wrote a small piece on how his day went after I promised to put it on my blog. So here is his log.
My parents in their attempts to restrict my digital exposure, tried to confine me to the desktop machine and the TV. So, the order of preference was:
- Phone- complete no-no; small, touch screen- allowed only if the sky was falling
- Laptop- a no-no again; bigger screen – so allowed if there was a threat of sky falling (Or the computer was crashing or if we’re in a place where we could not ‘carry’ the computer- like on vacation)
- Desktop machine- Fairly fast and upgraded by dad many times- large monitor, not touch screen so restrictions are even lesser- my go to machine whenever I got my allocated screen time for doing anything the grownups wanted- homework or help around the house.
- TV- poor thing it came last in the hierarchy but is one of my most favorite screens- the 50-inch screen that is enough to keep my mom from having anxiety attacks for my digital exposure- the icing on the cake is that this is one screen where Microsoft Family Features does not work!!! (I hope pop doesn’t find out how to do that, of course… That would be a disaster!) And yes, my usual tantrums of 10 additional minutes, wanting to finish the episode etc. works 😀
So, dad challenged me to spend a day without TV and I took it on. By the way I am a voracious book reader as well. The house currently has enough books to open a small library. I was granted 2 hours of time on the computer and the rest of the time I had to live in the non-digital world. I woke up and buried myself in books till the first hour of computer time came and I jumped at it. After that breakfast and lunch followed with some discussion with mom and dad. Post lunch I used my other allotted hour and played Roblox. I sneaked into dad’s Kindle to read Tinkle but caught me soon enough to say this was not allowed 🙁
Mom informed me that my face-to-face math class was on schedule, and it took one and a half hours to go, do the class and come back. I performed well on tests and got additional computer time from dad. But by nightfall I was missing my favorite screen and requested time from my parents. They pointed out that I had to resist a mere one-and-half hours to complete the day and they were going to support me in finishing the challenge,
As a reward I ate two bowls of homemade ice-cream, had a lazy dinner and read books. And I made it to wind-down time without TV!!!
BTW, my mom helped me write this log on yesterday. 🙂