A Day in the Life of a Screen-Free Kid

My response to the question, "What do your kids do all day?"

When they can’t text, they send Etch-a-Sketch notes…

Sometimes people ask what my kids do all day, without phones or tablets. While the question always jolts me a bit, it reminds me of how far we’ve moved away from an old-fashioned play-based childhood, that adults have forgotten how kids can exist apart from screens.

So, I thought it might be helpful to roughly outline a day in the life of my mostly-screen-free children. This is a typical school day right now. As you’ll see, their day is so full and varied that I have trouble imagining where they’d even fit screen time into it, if that were something we allowed.

6:30-8:30 am: Wake up, get dressed, have breakfast, pack lunch for school

Within this 2-hour window, all my kids have small chores to do (empty dishwasher, take out recycling, empty compost bin), and they have to do their daily music practice, which ranges from 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on their age. (See Every Kid Hates Practicing Music)

Apart from practicing, which my husband oversees, they are largely unsupervised during this time. They know what they need to do. Of course there is plenty of squabbling and arguing, as well as playing and laughter.

Yesterday I had to leave my office to intervene in a provocative battle over someone’s booger getting displayed to someone else. Today it was a battle over someone touching someone’s toy that was supposed to be off-limits. These antics can feel annoying to me, and I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as the kids all leave the house—but then I miss them again within a few minutes.

8:30 am: Leave for school

The kids walk or bike themselves to school. They go together or with friends. We are fortunate to live close to both schools that they attend. I used to walk the route with them every day, and we spent time practicing how to do it safely on their own.

I stopped walking my youngest in grade one, and he’s been doing it on his own ever since. Just last week, he told me he loves walking to school. “There are so many things to see!”

8:30 am-3:15 pm: Peace and solitude reign

This is the bulk of my workday, spent holed up in my office on a laptop.

3:20 pm: Back from school

Kids trickle home on their own, sometimes with friends in tow. They empty their lunches and bags, and eat, eat, eat like the little bottomless pits that they are. I come in from my office to start prepping food for dinner. It’s a chance to get a head start on the later meal and to catch up with them. They talk about their day in the kitchen while I work. Then they go relax.

This is, in some ways, the toughest part of the day. It’s the emptiest time, when they’re tired and a bit bored and would be most prone to pulling out a phone if they had one.

Instead, common activities involve playing with the hamster, alternating between lying and jumping on the trampoline, wrestling with each other in the hammock, or—their most recent fascination—training a wild chipmunk to sit in their lap and eat from their hand. Sometimes they play basketball in the driveway or visit the toddler next door, who’s always outside. They like building fires in the backyard and doing workouts in the garage gym. (See On Filling the Void)

I try to avoid giving direction or chastising them because I know they’ll settle into a quieter, calmer state, given enough time. Inevitably they do. They start reading (they gravitate instinctively toward the big squishy chair I put beside the living room window), drawing, playing games like chess or crokinole. The oldest sits down to do his homework (on a school-mandated laptop that has no social media).

I tell them if additional chores need to be done and sometimes write it on the chalkboard in the kitchen, e.g., laundry folded and put away, lawnmowing, weeding, vacuuming, putting the finishing touches on dinner, or picking up a book at the library a few blocks away, etc. This isn’t always the case. They walk the neighbour’s dog every day for $5, so that’s a good way to get outside.

4:30-6 pm: Gym and Dinner

At this point, I usually go to the CrossFit gym for an hour. My husband gets home around this time. Once we get into summer, we will often head to the beach for a quick swim in Lake Huron during this chunk of time.

After that, we have dinner together. (See The Art of Family Dinner)

6-8 pm: Extracurricular activities, like soccer, music lessons, symphony rehearsal, etc.

We make a conscious effort to minimize extracurriculars, but just by virtue of having a bunch of kids, if each one plays music and plays a sport, we inevitably end up getting busy on weeknights. Soccer season is the fullest, but I’m OK with it, because I don’t mind sitting outside on beautiful warm evenings, reading a book during practices and games. Winters are much less busy (we don’t do hockey).

8-8:30 pm: Bedtime

My kids tell me indignantly that they go to bed far earlier than their friends. I point out that they wake up earlier than their friends. Plus, I go to bed early (my day starts at 5:30), so I like to have at least a small buffer between when they go to sleep and when I do. It helps me wind down.

I read out loud to my youngest. We’re working our way through Gary Paulsen’s classic Hatchet, and my husband’s reading him The Hobbit, so the book changes depending on who’s on bedtime duty. We’ve made a lot of headway over the years, reading out loud for 15-20 minutes.

Sometimes they can read on their own for a half hour before turning out the light. But often, they’re too tired. Two of them share a room, which I think is a lovely way for kids to grow up. I can hear them talking for a while after I say goodnight, digesting the day’s adventures. I love eavesdropping on them.

And that’s about it.

Sometimes on a Friday evening, when there’s no soccer or music, they ask to watch a movie after dinner. I often say yes.

Sometimes in the chaos of the early morning routine, they’ll log onto the family desktop computer to check group chats with friends (that use my Apple ID account and email handle). I see them sending goofy emojis back. But then they log off and walk away for another day. It doesn’t go with them in their pocket, which is key.

You Might Also Like:

On Supercharged Socializing
Subtract Yourself
Apple Gets Creativity Wrong

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Interesting News & Stories:

• Opinion: There are lessons to be learned from Finland, but giving smartphones to young children isn’t one of them (Hechinger Report)

• PLOS Mental Health: Functional connectivity changes in the brain of adolescents with Internet addiction (aka Jonathan Haidt was right!)

• Why Dining Rooms Are Disappearing From American Homes (the Atlantic)

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