Screen-free evenings are creating new habits and patterns in our lives. Now, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we can’t just settle in for another evening of mindless streaming, social media, or video games. We have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. We’ve done a lot more reading. We’ve also had a lot of family game nights. Last Thursday’s game was Bananagrams, a game which is a lot like my day job. After we were done playing, Marshall and I built a word grid together that included references to “Star Trek” (such as the word QUADRANT crossing ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA, and DELTA) and words from his recent science classes (such as ORGANELLE and CYTOPLASM). I thought that this was more fun than playing Banagrams by the rules, and for us to enjoy the game more as a family we need to adapt the rules so that we are working together rather than against one another.
The pattern of screen-free evening shows itself in our Internet usage, my husband reports. It’s also starting to show itself on my blog. My husband asked how I’d managed to a post book review on a Tuesday. The answer is that I had scheduled the post in advance. Between work and screen-free evenings, I don’t have much time for writing blog posts during the week, so I have to write them on the weekend. When scheduling posts for the week, I rarely get past Wednesday, so Thursdays and Fridays tend to be left empty.
It will be interesting to see if these new habits and patterns continue. Screen-free days are sometimes difficult for all of us. There are times when the kids complain, and that’s frustrating. I feel their pain. I really do. I sometimes find screen-free evenings to be difficult, too, and I’ve tried to make the kids understand that. Screen-free evenings are not some terrible parental method for torturing children. They’re good for all of us, and we all need them.