Electronics-Free Weekend Mornings

It’s harder than I thought. It sounds so simple. Our family would go electronics-free on weekend mornings from the time we wake up (which can be anytime depending on socccer games) until lunchtime (approximately 12pm). If we wake up around 8am, it’s four whole hours. We’ve been doing this about a month and it’s been four long hours. It’s harder than I thought for all of us, but it’s also way more beneficial than I could have ever predicted.

Why? You may ask. Why subject yourselves to this, especially on the weekend when everyone is supposed to be relaxing? Yes. Agreed. It felt foolish and stupid the first couple of times. But we had sat down as a family at our dining room table and we’d told the kids, 5 and 9 years old, that we would all be embarking on this offline adventure together. No electronics for those weekend morning hours for all of us - Mommy and Momma included. No tablets, no phones, no TV, no Xbox. It was almost scary. We realized quickly the grown ups had to participate or it wouldn’t work. It would seem wholly unfair if we were sitting there on our phones scrolling social media while the kids tried to figure out what to do. I also had to acknowledge what a privileged thing this is to do and a lot of this is afforded by our economic position, our flexible work and weekend schedules. This is not possible for all families and that’s okay. We’re all different and trying to get through this parenting thing; maybe enjoy it and learn from it in our own ways. Electronics allow other things to happen - chores, work, and possibly even a parental break. All of which are always needed. The laundry never ends.

We learnd a quick and painful lesson wek one of the endeavor - the kids had to figure out what to do. They didn’t totally know how to think of different activities to try on their own. They gave up quickly. They complained there was nothing to do. It would have been so easy to lapse back into tablet time or video games (which my wife and I as Gen Xers enjoy playing too). The comfort, reliability and ease of the electronic world has lulled us into an inability to try different things, see if we want to do them, and if we don’t, move on to something else. It was time for our kids to learn how to move through them, and concurrently, how to to be bored. We’d read all the articles about how being bored and associated idea are good for them, but one thing the articles don’t address is how to handle the endless whining that comes with kid boredom. Especially kids who are endlessly stimulated and are very much not used to being bored. Who truly don’t know what to do with themselves. We learned we'd be doing this together, at least to start. You don’t fast forward to a Gen X summer riding bikes in the neighborhood and drinking from a friend’s hose like all the TikToks say. Is that perceived shared history even real? Some of the hyped freedom nostalgia is true for our childhoods yet some is idealistic at best. Yes, I rode my bike, but in a defined neighborhood radius - if I strayed too far I got in trouble. I drank from garden hoses and ate sandwiches at friends’ houses. I made forts, built sandcastles, and read a lot on my own. My wife found her way through an independent and at times, lonely, childhood as the third child in a busy household. TV was unrestricted and we both probably saw too much too early with those Saturday afternoon movies. We weren’t supervised as much, we were attended to when we needed it, but when we fell off our bike we got up, rubbed some spit on it and kept riding.

All this to say, some of the Gen X lore is true to me and some isn’t. What I know for sure is my kids’ generation is quite different. Their school is not our school. Our kindergartner navigates a Chromebook with ease. She loves school, loves her group of girl friends, and can write, read, and spell pretty well. Our third grader is navigating the social emotional minefield of the playground and lunchroom amongst prepubescent boys (and sometimes girls, though they play a supporting role in the drama of his life right now). Every kid is different. For him, school is boring and hard, filled with unsure social moments, with PE and recess his only relief. Their school is accelerated well past what we were learning at that age. They use computers and screens and do the new math and the old math and still have time play educational games. They get on the bus at 8:30am and come home at 3:30pm exhausted. They could be two baby bosses dragging briefcases behind them most days; looking like they went to work and need to decompress at the end of a long day.

On weekdays after school we allow electronics time and are pretty free with it. All parents have their own ways of handling this after school, after work time. Maybe you have on hour of electronics time, and I support that. Maybe you have none. Major props. For us, we work from home which means we can be there when the kids get off the bus everyday. That feels awesome, like a real parenting win. It also means we have to keep working as the work day doesn’t end at 3:30pm. Whether two moms, two dads, or a hetero couple, it’s hard not to see how the system is set up for parents to fail given this schedule. So the kids have choices - they can go on electronics, they can go outside, they can play in their rooms. Some days they play with the neighborhood kids before electronic time. We keep this time flexible and open, mostly to allow them to come down from their days, get some snacks, and feel a bit more like themselves again. We all mask in professional settings and it’s during this time that I can see our kids gradually let theirs fall away.

I’d like to tell you it’s only an hour or two. I’d like to tell you they’re busy learning an instrument or something like that. They’re not. They’re relaxing. And many times, our strategy of electronic freedom during the week leads to wonderful results where our son will go outside and play soccer, on his own, his choice. Sometimes he does it with his tablet still on. Sometimes not. But it’s not some forbidden fruit he’s begging for. Other times he plays with the 12 year old boy who lives two houses down, no electronics, as soccer with an older boy is quite serious. Our daughter will eventually tire of her favorite shows (Big City Greens, Pinky Malinky, she’s really into satire if you know those shows) and say, “Mommy, I don’t know what to do.” At this moment my wife or I will set up a craft, a game, a puzzle, a building set, and either automously or with one of us she’ll do something offline. Both kids do chores throughout the day and earn quarters. They know how to do the dishes and the laundry (not well, but we’re working on it). They understand the family is a group effort, and we all contribute. Progress not perfection. Balance.

Which brings me back to the weekend. It started to feel like too much when our son was getting up at 7am on Saturdays and hitting the YouTube, Xbox, or both simultaneously. We instituted a not-before-8:30am rule to mitigate this but it felt weak. Then we thought what about lunchtime? Could we make it? What else are we really doing during that time? Part of this was inspired by our daughter who increasingly requested “something else” to do. She needs to do something with her hands so we’ve moved through sewing, crocheting, even the diamond thing where you push those tiny little crystals into a pattern (I love and hate that activity). She’s the kid who wants to build a robot, make origami, and “draw something” all within an hour. We knew if we were going to go electronics free we’d have to be prepared and ready to involve ourselves fully with her. And with him. But isn’t that the point? Have we as parents lost our will to facilitate creative and learning opportunities for our kids? Is it that hard to pull out a board game and play it? Sometimes, yes.

The electronics black hole vortex doesn’t just pull our kids. It pulls us too. I love to read and given a choice that’s what I’d be doing anytime, anywhere. But I too have those moments where all I want to do is lay on the couch and zone out to TikTok videos for a half an hour (ok fine an hour). It’s so easy. It’s like eating cake, but like three slices instead of one. And the kids then need to be on their electronics too for it to work. For me not to be bothered. Is that really the goal? We took seven years and a whole lot of money to bring these kids into the world to let Netflix and Fortnite be their companions. No. We wanted to make sure there was more. And we weren’t going to get through the impeding summer without learning a few independence skills.

We took the plunge and moved the 8:30am weekend rule to lunchtime. We had the discussion and the grown ups committed too. Our son fought us all the way. Lots of upset and tears. “Why?” he’d ask, over and over. He felt like he did something wrong and we reassured him he did not and that this was good for all of us. We knew based on the sheer level of protest that we were making the right call. Our daughter loved it. She wanted all of our attention anyway and she got it. We made crafts, worked on her crochet, planted a garden. Mhy wife put up a swing on a tree in our backyard and it’s her favorite place. Sometimes I pull up an Adriondack chair and just sit with her while she’s swinging, a calming co-regulation. We started doing all those things you remember from your childhood. Before electronics.

The weeks went by and every weekend our son would protest and our daughter would get to work on whatever we set out together. He’d play lots of soccer in the backyard and eventually he started reading a Dog Man book. He’d read them before but hadn’t shown much interest. That weekend he didn’t have much else to do so he read some more. And more. And for the first time he genuinely got into a book on his own. He read 100 pages of Dog Man that weekend and he was so proud. We felt like we’d crossed over into something else. We weren’t sure what it was but it was working.

Now, mind you, they get electronics after lunch on the weekends. The 3-4 hours isn’t that long of a time and some weekends there are early soccer games and by the time it’s done they’re into electronics. Some weekends soccer is at 12pm, followed by lunch, followed by a birthday party, followed by the neighborhood friend wants to play. On those days, electronics happen much later. And as we tell the kids (and ourselves), “electronics are not our first priority.” And I can truly say they are not. I don’t goad myself into some false belief that we’re doing it right or better. I don’t even know what that means. After Covid obliterated my views of screentime when we were required to supervise online kindergarten (which was the saddest as kindergarten was never meant to be online), while working from home and trying to maintain some semblance of present parenting, I don’t subscribe to whatever those rules are or were anymore. Parents have been on our own and we make our own community with other parents and we figure it out. The only time those rules come into play is when some expert swoops in to tell us we’re doing it wrong but without any real advice or steps to implement in real life. Do less online. Sure. But how? I’m tired of policing. I don’t want to be known to my kids as the person who told you when you could have electronics or not. I want to make space for the play, the fun.

About four weeks into this weekend exercise something happened. Multiple things happened. Our kids decided to go outside together first thing on Saturday morning. On their own. No complaints, no whining. My wife and I slept in a bit. We all started reading in the morning. I’ve seen my wife read one book in about 20 years together and now she’s really enjoying Lessons in Chemistry. I’m tearing through my summer pile of books accumulated on my bedside and couldn’t be happior to prioritize one of my favorite hobbies over social media updates. Our daughter has gradually started drawing and making things on her own (again, a process and not immediate or perfect). She has an art cart in the dining room and now is using it to make sweet gifts for us or draw things from her imagination (like Mommy does; I’ve been painting more). Who knows if it will last. They asked to have a sleepover together which they haven’t done in a while. This is one of the real immediate and lasting benefits of no electronics - the kids’ connection with each other is stronger. They talk, they play, they laugh, they argue together. They share more space - literally and figuratively - together when they’re not on electronics. Our daughter watches TV in the living room and our son plays video games in a garage converted into a game room. They couldn’t be farther from each other. Now, she’s jumping on his bed while he kicks the soccer ball and they’re chatting away. I hold on to these moments as they are both getting older. Solidifying their relationship before the impending tidal wave of hormones and puberty and change feels like an important gift we can give them. If they can keep the mutual respect and work on the understanding, I’m not saying it will be better or worse but I feel it has to help in some way.

I only cheat when I forget and I have to take a photo of them doin’g something sweet or smart or sporty. I post photos on Instagram without thinking. My son calls me out, “Mommy you cheat all the time!” No, I don’t I start to say but then I know he’s right. I recommit myself and tell him I’ll only use the phone for music and I’ll announce what I am doing so everyone (including me) knows I’m not cheating. This sounds ridiculous. I know. This is what it takes for me, for us in this world where we are about to hand over so much of what we do to the next AI innovation. When I mow the lawn, weed the garden, or write, anything that requires a human effort I feel I am staving that off just a little bit longer. When I hear the soccer ball hitting the net, and my daughter is next to me watering the plants, I feel there’s hope yet.