With the internet, social media, wireless tablets, smartphones, and even smart TVs, the digital world has become a ubiquitous part of our culture. The widespread availability and use of screened devices can be a double-edged sword though–especially when it comes to kids as parents struggle with managing screen time.
Hi, I’m Jennifer, an educator, a mother of three young children, and a regular contributor here at 5 Minutes for Mom. Today I’m excited to share with you a fantastic book that addresses the use of technology with our children and the challenge of managing screen time. You’ll also find share some great ideas for screen-free activities along with a fun, colorful printable! Oh, and don’t miss the giveaway at the bottom of this post. This post is sponsored by Indigo, and it’s on such an important topic so a BIG thank you for reading and sharing!
When I was a child, I remember my parents purchasing and bringing home our very first home computer. It had a huge, bulky screen and gigantic tower. We thought it was amazing! My parents bought several educational programs on floppy disks for my sister and me to use with this exciting piece of equipment. Even so, our time spent on that dinosaur of a computer was monitored and limited, and it certainly wasn’t something we could carry around with us like today’s wireless devices.
Now modern technology brings countless educational apps, e-books, shows, and amazing resources right into our children’s laps. Screens are everywhere! But how much screen-time is too much? How do we set healthy limits for our kids when it comes to wireless devices? What’s a good way to start that conversation with our children?
A Helpful Book about Managing Screen Time
For all of those answers and more, we’re looking to an expert.Â
Dr. Tripler Pell is a physician and educator, with specialized training in both mental and environmental health. She has a background in academic medicine and enjoys translating current evidence into practical information to help families stay healthy. She is also the author of the book Blinky and the Phone Fiasco available exclusively at Indigo, Chapters and Coles as well as indigo.ca.
It’s a humorous tale of a young boy who spends so much time on his mom’s phone that he eventually turns into a phone. His parents frantically call the doctor and are told there is a cure. Can you guess what it is? Yes, the cure is to spend screen-free time outside.
One of the themes I appreciate in the book is spending time together as a family. After being told the cure for Blinky’s condition the book reads, “The family left their phones indoors and brought Blinky into the backyard. They all waited for a very, very long time. They were very patient together.”
Together!
That’s the heart of the book. Of course, Blinky’s fiasco of turning into a phone isn’t possible beyond the pages of this humorous story, but the book is a great way to begin a real and open conversation with your kids about responsible screen use. And, of course, reading a book with the kids is a great way to spend quality time together.
There’s that word again. Together! It’s important to set limits together as a family, but it’s even more important to spend time together. This book certainly encourages that.
Beyond the humorous tale, there is a section at the back of the book with tips for wireless screen use. I appreciate that Dr. Pell recognizes that there are no hard-set rules that fit every family.
Each individual family has to set their own limits depending on their personal values and the ages of their children.
Screen-Free Activities
Dr. Pell also recognizes the importance of screen-free play and time spent in the great outdoors to engage in physical activities. Are you looking for new ways to spend screen-free time together with your kids?
Enjoy this printable calendar filled with ideas for screen-free activities.
Let it be a springboard into spending quality time together as a family away from wireless devices and phones. Maybe you are feeling really ambitious and it becomes a month-long, screen-free challenge. Pick and choose as many or as few of these fun activity suggestions as you’d like.
I feel like this list of screen-free activities only begins to scratch the surface of the fun and enjoyment that can be found away from a screen.
My kids and I frequently unplug from all devices to focus on spending screen-free time together. It’s often at times when I feel like my kids or even myself (Guilty!) are becoming too reliant on our devices.
One of the best secrets to managing screen time is to focus on adding more fun family activities together instead of letting kids feel like you’re taking away their fun by reducing screen time.
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Disclosure: This post is sponsored, so extra thanks for reading and sharing.
Written by Jennifer Dawn, contributor here at 5 Minutes for Mom, and the blogger behind The Life of Jennifer Dawn.
Talk with us: @5minutesformom and Facebook.com/5minutesformom
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We like to go for walks, play board games or go on road trips!
We love to take long walks and enjoy the new growth of nature, now that the snow is gone
I love reading to my boys before bed bed as part of our night time routine.
We love playing outside with the dogs.
We really like going for walks with the dogs together, sometimes out to woods or a nature reserve. We also like to go biking.
we read together everyday
We love going for walks and playing board games together.
We love taking our dog to the park and playing ‘soccer’ with him.
We love hiking and playing board games
Every evening we take the dogs for a walk .
We love going to the park to play, going for walks and going to the beach in the summer!
just let the kids run wild out in the backyard, pick up sticks and dig for worms
My favourite screen-free activity is bike riding.
We like going for walks or bike rides, and heading to the beach.
Our family has game nights when we play board games or charade-type of games.
I like to play tic tac toe and other games plus we colour.
Board games are a great choice.
We play board games and go for walks
We like to play board games, go for hikes and cook together!
We love geocaching, bike riding and playing with lego
Story time for sure! <3
Making things – art, play dough, planting, baking, etc. Making things together is not always easy but definitely rewarding.
Going for a walk, to the park or playing board games.
We iike to put on our favorite music and belt out those tunes & dance.
my kids and I love to color, we love spending time together, we love to play some board games or do puzzles too
We love board games- my son and I are into Exploding Kittens!
camping
Going to the park is our favourite screen free activity.
going for a walk in the neighbourhood
Board games are our favorite non-screen time activity! All kinds: easy ones, cooperative, strategic German style.
We love playing board games.
Doing a craft is so interesting for the kid,
Playing a board game
Visit a museum
When the weather is nice enough we like to get outside to play and explore. If the weather isn’t the greatest we read, and do arts and crafts.
As a family we take a walk and play in our neighbourhood playground.
We love to play games, do puzzles, paint rocks to hide and go for hikes!
Our favourite non screen time activities are going to the park, jumping on our trampoline and going on nature walks 🙂
our favourite screen free activities are going for a family walk in the nature park near our home or our neighbourhood, walking down to the river and along the path system along the river, going for a family bike ride, snuggling up under blankets outside on chairs and reading our books, playing board games, playing in our mud kitchen.
Blowing bubbles outside, jumping on the trampoline, treasure hunts, play dough and doing crafts are some of the screen-free activities I like to do with my grandchildren.
Camping is #1 for us! It really makes everyone unplug and appreciate the outdoors. We also go for walks & boating with water sports!
My kids love it when I make up scavenger hunts for them.
Walk to the park.
My family like to go walking outside in good weather and dancing to music indoors in bad weather.
cycling
We like to play board games together to get away from the screens.
Playdoh, reading, and playing with the toy kitchen
I have two year old twins and we love to read books and do puzzles together. The wooden Melissa and Doug puzzles are our favorites and right now our favorite book to read together is Llama Llama Red Pajama.
we have a part across the street that they love to play in and we do lots of cycling around
A few of our favourite screen free activities include nature walks & feeding birds, painting together, and on a rainy day like today we curl up together on the couch with blankets and read story after story. 💕📚
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Love to go out to have a walk with my daughter
We love to play family games – Exploding Kittens is a current fast paced favourite. As the weather warms we will go biking more.
Our most favorite screen free activity is camping!! There are no screens allowed. Period.
My kid, 6-yrs, likes cooking. So we spend lots of times in the kitchen cooking, baking, munching..making fun mess together.. then we’ll enjoy the food we made while playing some games and finish it off with dancing.. it’s our fave ‘mom n kid’ time.
We love doing puzzles and playing board games, and going to the playground!
We love to read. My kids love books. They have their own libraries. We often go to our public library too. Walking there is always fun. We get to check out all the nature. We also have 2 dogs so we go on lots of walks together.
Hiking outside is a fun activity!
We love to go for walks, go to the park, hike, play board games, and read together as a family. And our daughters like to put on dance shows and since to us as their audience.
Board Games is our family’s favorite screen free activity inside. Basketball is our favorite for outside.
We like to read, play outside, play with toys, crafts, tinker around the house.
We play board games alot.
going to the park, winter activites like sledding skating or staying in playing board games
Walking at the park, usually that is screen free time, but sometimes everybody cheats a little bit.
Some of our screen-free activities are play board games, baking, gardening, walks, bike rides and arts & crafts,
My daughter is just under 2, so no screen time yet. She loves to read books and has over 100 of them. You can be talking about something and she will go find a book and show you the subject you are talking about.
We love to go outside for walks and to the park. She also loves her chalkboard and coloring pages I make from all my stamps. Can’t wait for summer and beach days⛱⛱⛱
We like to take the dogs for a walk or play a board game.
We have dance parties or we chase each other around (individually, pairs or just run around as a group)
We go for walks to the park. Take the dog to the dog park. Go to tree house and u play. Once the weather gets better screen time will even be more limited with all the fun we can do in our backyard alone.
My kids only play their tablets on Sundays. Books before bedtime- always. Hockey all winter, now onto swimming.
playing outside and board games
We like to hike together, go to the park, and go swimming. We also play board games fairly often and do a lot of reading. Backyards are a great way for us to avoid screen time too.
We love going on bike rides, having game nights and putting together big jigsaw puzzles as a family.
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We keep our bookshelves stocked with the classics and Archie’s too so there are lots of options for relaxing with a good book. As a family we love to go swimming together.
We play outside and go for hikes all the time. We read books, play with cars and blocks when we’re inside.
We do lots of different crafts and then go for walks.
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We try to do as much as we can outdoors.
We try to use our screen time productively. Lately it’s been geocaching and Pinterest searches to make jam. Stuff that we learn from. We try to just sit & talk about our busy days!
We don’t do a lot of screen time. My son loves reading books, playing outside, painting and playing with playdough. We just never made it a habit. He gets a show as a treat!:)
We spend a lot of time outside, or inside reading, playing games, playing with Lego, etc. Lots of open ended and imagination stuff.
Screen time makes my kids squirrelly amd unruly sobwe tend to just not do it. At home we are screen free 4/5 days. We prefer books, crafts, audio drama, imagination and fresh air.
We love doing board games and colouring. My son seems to think story time is only appropriate during bed time :p
We love to play board games and do puzzles, and go for walks in nature.
We play lots of board games, card games, we do lots of crafts too.
We love playing at playground! I am so excited that the snow is finally melting. My boys right now are sure loving playing in the puddles.
First and foremost we LOVE Monopoly and other board games as well.
We love going for Bike rides, and just recently we got into archery and air rifle shooting.
We also love going to the beach
We love being outdoors – especially when it’s warmer. Picnic, walks, just playing in the yard, zoo. We also love books and crafts. Building with blocks, puzzles, baking… So much to do!
Our favourite screen free activities are camping, fishing and hunting. Our son purchased his own tablet and has a daily electronic limit (includes tablets and tv) of 1 1/2 hours a day and in the summer this goes down to only used on road trips. We havr also started doing large puzzels which the kids seem to enjoy and it brings back memories for me.
Our favourite non-screen activities are exploring and playing outside, reading, and baking together.
My kids will play in the backyard, build puzzles, go for bike rides, or color.
My kids would rather ride there bikes or play outside with the kids in our street which helps reduce screen time.
We love going to the parks and letting our kid play on the slides.
DAAAANCE PARTY!!
Aimless walks
We love to be outside a lot and have screentime mostly on the weekends only 🙂
My child is still a baby but I try to stay off my phone while around him. Lots of games, singing and walks outside.
If we can’t be outside, we love boardgames!!
We are outside as much as possible, kicking a ball around, camping, playing in the sprinkler…. but for being indoors we seam to always have a couple art projects on the go or work on a puzzle.
We like to go camping, or have a picnic near the beach.
Screen time is good.. go out walking, biking, go to park
Screen-free time is the best time! We like to: get outside and go for a hike/walk!
We love to play outdoors, splashing in puddles and going for walks.
I plan a play date with her classmates. Who doesn’t love spending time with friends. We usually go to a park. If it’s raining then we go to an indoor park or go swimming.
We play at the park, spend time there playing with outdoor toys, picnics and explore. When at home we read, read and create beautiful artwork and enjoy games.
We love exploring in our neighbourhood, and especially finding puddles to splash in this time of year.
We love going hiking and biking. Playing outdoors is the best!
We unplug and make a priority to get outside to play too. Trying to find a good balance can be tough but necessary
We love doing board games as a family. It’s fun and distracts the kids from wanting the screen.
my grandkids love to play board games with me at my house and we do crafts too
We only use tablets when we are on long drives. At home we play in the yard, board games and bike riding.
We send the kids out to play. The older kids do archery. The younger play together well.
Go to the park or walk by the river with our dog together.
We love to read, do craft, play games and spend time outside.
Going to the park, playing games, creative toy play.
I like to have screen free activities on hand when it’s time to stop
My favourite screen-free activity is going to the park or for nature walks. There is so much for little ones to discover outdoors!