This is a great place to start. May I suggest board games too? They are a great way for teaching so many skills inherently! Bonus: older kids teach younger kids how to play!
"Resist the urge to view this as clutter. Part of encouraging analog play is accepting that there will be mess and visual chaos at times. If you rush to clean it up, you deprive your kid of the opportunity to get back into a project again, so try to let it be (within reason!)."
Thank you for making this point. This is SUCH a critical part of making the switch away from screens for parents. You have to be comfortable with mess. If kids are not on screens, they are being kids! Playing, creating, exploring, pretending, and all of that is messy. It's HARD and I am constantly telling myself it is okay to have a lived in house.
I love this article! I work from home full-time and this is the first summer that my kids (ages 6 1/2 and 9) will be home with me full-time without a part time nanny. Your book and Substack helped me make this pivot and feel totally fine about it! Another thing to add to the list above is gardening! We were gifted vegetable starts and our kids are now responsible for them. It’s been fun to see them engage in watering and tending but also has allowed us to get books from the library to help them read and learn about gardening!
That's a great point that I wish I'd thought of! My youngest is into plants and we have an array of pots with sprouts at varous stages all over the kitchen counters. Gardening of any kind is a wonderful activity for kids. Thank you.
Ours went cold turkey at Summer camp this week. I'm so glad they're outside. As always, helpful information. Our boys spend six hours a day painting Warhammer figures. It's stupid expensive for what it is (plastic crap) but they love it!
One thing I notice is that most (though not all) of the alternatives to screen time require an adult to engage in some possibly very time consuming "training" of the child. Learning to read, learning to play a boardgame, learning a sport, learning a musical instrument, learning how to properly mop and the correct way to do various other chores, learning to cook a simple meal, etc.
Just some anecdotes from my own life with 4-year-olds: soccer at this age still requires about 70% parent involvement despite there being a coach, reading obviously is still all on the parents for a while more, most "activity books" include instructions on each page that a parent has to read ("daddy, what do I do on this one"), picking a jigsaw puzzle they can do without getting stuck and needing to ask for my help is a tricky balance, getting them to follow the rules of any age-appropriate boardgame is nearly a full-time job even if I'm not the one playing, etc.
I guess that's part of the allure of screentime -- it doesn't require any real investment from parents before it starts paying off. It's probably also part of what is scary for parents who want to wean their kids off of screentime because there's always a "this is going to take more of your time before it starts taking less of your time" that they know is lurking there.
To which I can't help but respond (in a general sense, not directed at you specifically), "Isn't that your job?!" Yes, many of these activities require parental assistance, but kids don't raise themselves!
I recently heard a thought-provoking podcast with Konstantin Kisin and Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst/social worker/author, who was talking about the function of the parent being to stimulate the child, and how if they're not present to do so, a child will turn to a screen. She emphasizes the idea that "your time belongs to your child," at least for these initial years.
Now, I don't agree with all of that, but I do suspect we've moved too far away from that in modern western culture, where parents think they can raise a kid without having to inconvenience themselves or change their own habits all that much. Not true! Everything changes, and it requires giving over an enormous amount of our time and attention to their developmet.
An art supply station is a great thing to have available!
Also - I grew up with music lessons and I would add that it provides a really healthy outlet for emotional expression. And I subconsciously learned mathematical concepts from it too 😊
Music practice is great, but your argument for it here - it's useful to prove you can do hard things you don't like - is not very compelling for me. That's what kids do by putting up with 8 hours of school every day.
This is a great place to start. May I suggest board games too? They are a great way for teaching so many skills inherently! Bonus: older kids teach younger kids how to play!
Yes! I spent hours playing Monopoly and Scrabble.
I'm sometimes jealous of the people who have stacks of them at home. Maybe I just need to go out and get more 😂
Check your library! Many rent them out.
"Resist the urge to view this as clutter. Part of encouraging analog play is accepting that there will be mess and visual chaos at times. If you rush to clean it up, you deprive your kid of the opportunity to get back into a project again, so try to let it be (within reason!)."
Thank you for making this point. This is SUCH a critical part of making the switch away from screens for parents. You have to be comfortable with mess. If kids are not on screens, they are being kids! Playing, creating, exploring, pretending, and all of that is messy. It's HARD and I am constantly telling myself it is okay to have a lived in house.
I love this article! I work from home full-time and this is the first summer that my kids (ages 6 1/2 and 9) will be home with me full-time without a part time nanny. Your book and Substack helped me make this pivot and feel totally fine about it! Another thing to add to the list above is gardening! We were gifted vegetable starts and our kids are now responsible for them. It’s been fun to see them engage in watering and tending but also has allowed us to get books from the library to help them read and learn about gardening!
That's a great point that I wish I'd thought of! My youngest is into plants and we have an array of pots with sprouts at varous stages all over the kitchen counters. Gardening of any kind is a wonderful activity for kids. Thank you.
Ours went cold turkey at Summer camp this week. I'm so glad they're outside. As always, helpful information. Our boys spend six hours a day painting Warhammer figures. It's stupid expensive for what it is (plastic crap) but they love it!
One thing I notice is that most (though not all) of the alternatives to screen time require an adult to engage in some possibly very time consuming "training" of the child. Learning to read, learning to play a boardgame, learning a sport, learning a musical instrument, learning how to properly mop and the correct way to do various other chores, learning to cook a simple meal, etc.
Just some anecdotes from my own life with 4-year-olds: soccer at this age still requires about 70% parent involvement despite there being a coach, reading obviously is still all on the parents for a while more, most "activity books" include instructions on each page that a parent has to read ("daddy, what do I do on this one"), picking a jigsaw puzzle they can do without getting stuck and needing to ask for my help is a tricky balance, getting them to follow the rules of any age-appropriate boardgame is nearly a full-time job even if I'm not the one playing, etc.
I guess that's part of the allure of screentime -- it doesn't require any real investment from parents before it starts paying off. It's probably also part of what is scary for parents who want to wean their kids off of screentime because there's always a "this is going to take more of your time before it starts taking less of your time" that they know is lurking there.
To which I can't help but respond (in a general sense, not directed at you specifically), "Isn't that your job?!" Yes, many of these activities require parental assistance, but kids don't raise themselves!
I recently heard a thought-provoking podcast with Konstantin Kisin and Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst/social worker/author, who was talking about the function of the parent being to stimulate the child, and how if they're not present to do so, a child will turn to a screen. She emphasizes the idea that "your time belongs to your child," at least for these initial years.
Now, I don't agree with all of that, but I do suspect we've moved too far away from that in modern western culture, where parents think they can raise a kid without having to inconvenience themselves or change their own habits all that much. Not true! Everything changes, and it requires giving over an enormous amount of our time and attention to their developmet.
My fav. was allowing them to be bored and let their imaginations go wild! Tim
Love this, thank you!
Thank you! What a great concise resource for all parents.
An art supply station is a great thing to have available!
Also - I grew up with music lessons and I would add that it provides a really healthy outlet for emotional expression. And I subconsciously learned mathematical concepts from it too 😊
Music practice is great, but your argument for it here - it's useful to prove you can do hard things you don't like - is not very compelling for me. That's what kids do by putting up with 8 hours of school every day.
Love this. Thanks for the inspiration… we’re trying our first screen free week in July 🤞🤞🤞
So good. Kids acting out? Need more responsibility.
Great article Katherine! Thanks again for presenting at our Smartphone Free Childhood book club.
Doing chores not only builds character, but builds self-respect.