Screen Free Parenting: 4 Reasons We Love It

Ah, screen time… the blessing and bane of a mother’s existence in this age. It can be a lifesaver for a busy mom – but is it actually good for our kids? There are so many opinions, and feelings, and judgments! Add to this the fact that we can’t learn from the experience of previous generations – it’s no use asking Grandma how much iPad time her kids got. In many ways it feels like we, and the generation slightly younger than us, have been the guinea pigs as our society slowly learns what screen time and social media are doing to children and their brains.

Can we start by agreeing that screen time is a liberty? It is not always right, it is not always wrong, there is no commandment in the Bible that tells us exactly what to do, and there is no One Right Answer for every family at every time. Because of this, I have hesitated to write about screen free parenting at all – but some friends have asked, so I will share what we are currently doing and why it works for us, with the understanding that your family and priorities and circumstances are unique. Sometimes it’s helpful to see what other families do, just for the purpose of sparking ideas or encouraging more thought in that area! And yes, I do believe that screen time is important enough to merit some deliberate expenditure of your precious mom-brain-cells.

WHY We Have Made These Choices

Honestly, I laughed a little as I typed up this list of our screen time activities, and I know that many of you will think this is way too extreme – and that’s ok! We won’t, and shouldn’t, all make the same choices. Most of my good friends have different screen time policies in their homes, and I am pretty sure that if I were in their shoes – with their exact circumstances – I would make the same choices. However, the why behind any choice is the most important part, and there are enough studies coming out now about screen time (spoiler: they’re almost entirely negative) that it is well worth our time to think carefully about our choices and educate ourselves on what screen time is doing to our children. Many, many researchers are concerned that screen time is negatively impacting our children’s emotional, mental, physical and social health. So, why these particular choices for our family?

We would rather have a family culture of reading than electronic entertainment.

Not to say that we don’t do any electronic entertainment (we do), or that it is bad (it’s not), but based on what we have read and experienced in our own lives, Dear Husband and I are convinced that reading is far better and can even connect us better as a family.

It will be much easier to add in more screen time later than it would be to reduce or remove it.

If we change our minds someday and decide we’ve been too strict (entirely possible), I can assure you that our children will not oppose us adding more screen time to their days. However, if we had started with a lot of time on a lot of devices and then one day changed our mind, it would be a more difficult (though not impossible) change to make. I’d rather start out on the cautious side with the option of adding more later.

Even when the content of screen time is harmless or “educational,” I am convinced that it’s still not as good as literally anything else they could be doing.

There is a myriad of articles and studies showing that the younger a child is, the more they need to experience the world through their bodies and senses, not through a screen. So, it may not be bad – but most other things are better. The biggest reason we don’t have a lot of daily screen time is because I feel like our children would be missing out! Let me say that once more for those in the back: I don’t want my children to miss out on this beautiful life by spending hours each day on screens. There are so many other, better, more productive, enjoyable and interesting things to do with our time.

I don’t want our children to fear screens, or to view them as the “forbidden fruit,” which is why we allow some, rather than none.

I also don’t want to arbitrarily make rules which come from a place of fear in my own mind. It’s easy for me to get swept up in this extreme: “Screen time is awful and it’s ruining my children and I will never let them look at another screen again!” God has not given us a spirit of fear, and this attitude is simply not practical in our culture; screens are not going anywhere and our children will almost certainly spend their lives surrounded by them. I’d much rather that we all, as a family, learn to use them wisely and with self-control. I anticipate our boys needing to use the computer more as they get older, watching more movies and shows that we can discuss and enjoy as a family, and hopefully having many conversations about technology and media and how to use it wisely.

A Few More Thoughts That Guide Our Screen Free Parenting

Screen time choices begin with my own screen use.

I only began thinking about this recently, but I suddenly realized that what our children see me doing will most likely have a far greater impact on them than any rules I create for them. Actions speak louder than words, right? With this in mind, I want to work towards a) limited screen use in front of them and b) transparency as to what I am doing. Here’s what this looks like right now:

– limited social media usage: I set my phone to turn off Instagram after 30 minutes of use in one day. I recently reactivated Facebook (after a long, lovely break – highly recommended!) but am not using it on my phone, only occasionally on the computer, and am doing my best not to get sucked into the addicting news feed.

– put the phone down when the kids are talking to me: this is a no brainer – it’s only polite! – and I’d like to be even more intentional about keeping the phone in the other room when they are with me (which, TBH, is all day long except for rest time and bed time). I don’t do that now, but I would like to.

– if I must finish something on the phone in front of them, I tell them what I am working on: “I’ll help you in just a minute, I need to finish sending this message to Grandma.”

– Dear Husband and I do not play video games or watch tv. There’s nothing wrong with those things, I promise, but we somehow never got into the habit of it and we don’t see any reason to start now.

Screen free parenting and screen time limits are much, MUCH easier if you start when they are little.

The Babywise sleep training method (which we have used and recommend) likes to say, “Start as you mean to go on.” We have (slightly unintentionally) done this with screen time, and it’s been SO EASY. If your kids have never known a home with a tv in it, they will never ask you to turn it on. If they don’t know what video games are, you won’t have any battles about how long they can play. Granted, this only works until they reach a certain age and begin talking with certain friends and then they will suddenly realize that they might be missing out on something… but even still, the habits you begin when they are toddlers will be much easier to continue than suddenly starting a new rule in elementary or middle school.

Nature (and your child) abhors a vacuum, so we try to fill our time with other interests.

If I decide we need a week with zero screen time (yes, complete breaks are very good for all of us), it goes much smoother when we have many choices of activities and ideas to fill our time. Perhaps a new craft to try, a forgotten board game to master, an outdoor project for the kids to help with, or daily nature walks to fill time and burn energy. We might spend extra time at the library and playground, or practice new skills in the kitchen, or sign up for a sports class at our YMCA. In our house, just a brand new box of markers and piles of inviting blank paper will spark hours of creativity. Or, we might choose to lie on the grass and be bored! Boredom is not evil – instead it can be a great gift.

There are so many wonderful hobbies, games, skills, sports, ideas and adventures to offer our children, and the more we can share with them, the less they will miss their screens. And yes, this is harder. It requires more time and thought and energy from me than turning on the tv would; but I’m convinced the trade off is well worth it. We have already seen some of the fruits and I believe it will only get better.

What We DON’T Do

– TV or tablets (because we don’t have any)

– video games (again, we don’t own any – our kids don’t even know they exist… yet)

What We DO Allow

– very occasional full-length movies on the computer (like 4-5 times a year)

– most weekdays, one half-hour PBS kids show on the computer

– occasional Youtube videos of music or animals or some other subject relating to our school work

– sometimes I will let the boys do something on my phone: either send a text message to Grandma, or “play” with Google maps (they like to zoom in and out and find different countries), or take a few pictures with the camera

– facetime: none of our parents live nearby, so we facetime grandparents at least 1-2 times a week

– “typing” practice on their very own Google doc: there are times they are obsessed with slowly typing out words, or playing with the font or color or size or whatever else they can make Google docs do for them

This is our current routine, but it is not a law, and we bend it as needed. There are times when the weather is nice, I am feeling energetic or creative, and the kids are outside all day and won’t watch a show for weeks on end! And then there are other times when I am sick, or need to work on something urgent, or it’s been raining for ten days straight and kids are literally climbing the walls and MOM NEEDS A BREAK RIGHT THIS MINUTE – and we will add in an extra show or two. It’s okay, and I will not feel guilty about a little extra screen time when I know that we will return to our normal screen free parenting routine soon.

Book Recommendations Related to Screen Free Parenting

If you’d like to read more about screen time, entertainment, screen free parenting, and related topics, here are some that I have enjoyed:

– Glow Kids by Nicholas Kardaras

– Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

– The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman

– 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier

– Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

– Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

– The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch

– The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Again, please do not, DO NOT take our family’s choices as The Perfect Prescription For Success That You Must Imitate. You may have very good reasons for allowing video games, or more movies, or whatever – and if so, that’s great! This post is simply an encouragement to think and pray about the screen time your children are exposed to, perhaps to read about it if you haven’t yet, to consider moving towards screen free parenting, and to make intentional choices that fit with your family’s beliefs and priorities. Remember, if you are a parent, you can choose: you have the power to change the rules if they aren’t working and to create the kind of home atmosphere you want. What a great and beautiful responsibility that is!

Originally written May 25 2021