Hey friend! If you’ve been listening to our podcast, then you’ve heard us talk about our No Screen Challenge happening from Monday March 14 through Friday April 1st. And if you haven’t heard the podcast episode, but are interested in doing the challenge, we’re glad you’re here!
Ep. 115 – How to Get Kids to Stop Fighting – No Screen Challenge – Parenting in Real Life
Why the No Screen Challenge
We have found that around this time of year, our kids get more grumpy and fight more than usual. We don’t know if it’s a cabin fever effect or spring coming or the end of school coming up, but it’s been a bit crazy in our house. And we have noticed that our kids are especially crazy after using screens. Usually more after Nintendo or personal devices, but screens in general make our kids create chaos in our house. In seems counterintuitive, but taking screens from our kids actually helps with their behavior. So we’re taking a break from screens for 3 weeks.
Things to Know
If you haven’t done a no screen challenge before, there are a few tips that we want to share to help you with a smoother experience. You can also see our pros and cons list from the last time we did a no screen challenge.
- If you haven’t done this before, 3 weeks might be a little much. Start with a week and see how it goes, but definitely do more than 3 days.
- The first 3 days will be rough. If your kids are like ours and are used to lots of screens, it’s going to be hard to adjust to a no screen challenge. So you will probably see some frustration and tears, but don’t give in! They’ll get used to it and you’ll see your kids finding other things to do.
- Exceptions are ok. We are making some exceptions this time around. We love our family fun night tradition where we watch a movie together so we’ll keep that. We’re also going to let our kids do 2 hours of TV on Saturday so we can keep this going longer.
Types of Screens
Not all screens are created equal. When doing research about screens, I found that there is a variety or answers to what screens are ok and how much screen time kids should do. Some TV shows are educational and teach about growth mindset while some are flashy and are purely for entertainment. Some video games are creative and allow people to work together while others are violent. So maybe look through the different screens and see how they’re affecting your kids and remove just some.
If it was our family and we wanted to allow just one screen, we would keep TV. We find that our kids are more easily able to turn off the TV when we ask, but they get upset when we tell them to turn off their personal devices or video games. So you can also consider removing just some types of screens during this challenge as well.
Resources
As part of of our No Screen Challenge, we want to give you some resources to help you! I’ll be adding these throughout the challenge so make sure to join our newsletter so they come right to your inbox. Or if you see this after April 1, 2022, then click the links below! But you should really join our newsletter too. 🙂
Use #noscreenchallenge on instagram to show us what your kids are doing instead of screens!
Articles
If you want to look more into the science and what professionals are saying, here are some articles to get you started:
WebMD: Video Games and TV: Do They Make Kids Smarter?
Time: Experts Say ‘How Much’ Is the Wrong Way to Assess Screen Time
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: Screen Time and Children