Why We're Having a Screen-Free Summer

Hi,

How are you guys?

I feel like I’m a bit here, there and everywhere at the moment! We had five days in Mallorca with one of Matt’s oldest friends and his family. The kids had the time of their lives, May fell in love with their eight year old (she probably proposed 15+ times) and wellness looked like being totally present, drinking mango margaritas and enjoying salty swims.

It’s funny because I felt amazing. Of course I’m not advocating consistent drinking or pizza and fries for every meal, but it’s interesting to see how just being happy, being connected and being present really does do wonders for our wellbeing. We’re often trying so hard with wellness, taking all the supplements, mixing the green powders, buying the latest gadget, counting our steps, but we forget that connection, community and being present are some of the most powerful drivers of our health.

It also got me thinking about how we raise our kids. One of the reasons we left London was because Skye’s school just wasn’t working. It was a private school in west London and they put insane pressure on the girls. The level they were expected to perform at when they were just 5 was crazy, and it really affected her. She became anxious, overwhelmed and struggled with confidence. Two years in, we knew something had to change, and off we went. It’s one of the better parenting decisions we’ve made.

Anyway, it was interesting watching her jump into the sea, jump from pretty high heights, let go and just be free. I just feel as though kids have to be kids, they have to develop resilience, confidence and the ability to think outside the box rather than perform like monkeys under pressure. What do you think?

Watching them on holiday also made me realise just how different they are when screens move into the background and the focus is simply on playing tag, making friends, colouring when they’re bored and trying new things.

Which leads me on to what I wanted to write about today: my screen-free summer. I’ve had lots of questions about this and equally I sought a lot of advice on it, which might be helpful for other people.

Here’s the background: because the girls are moving schools they’ve ended up with an insanely long summer holiday, 10 weeks in total. I’m actually thrilled because I love having them home, love being together as much as we can, but equally I’m aware that’s a long time with no structure, no routine.

I also have one very sensitive child who does not do well with a lot of TV. It changes her whole personality, she goes from super sweet to stroppy and honestly pretty checked out very quickly.

Generally speaking we do no TV in the week, but we have been pretty liberal on weekends. In retrospect, probably too relaxed about it. They don’t have tablets at home, those are just for travel, so it’s just the endless Netflix that’s the challenge. And what I’ve started to notice is this default of, “I’m bored, can I watch TV?” Screens were becoming their first port of call whenever they didn’t have something to do. They also started just flicking channels, changing shows after five minutes, because they know there’s essentially an endless scroll of content and always something new just waiting. And guess what? They become overstimulated, jumping from show to show, not wanting to turn it off, me finding it hard to turn it off because there’s no clear ending and then they stop playing creatively, get cranky, fight with each other and the cycle continues.

I almost never talk about parenting. I’m very conscious of what is, and isn’t, my story to tell, and the girls’ intricacies and personalities are really their business, not mine to share with the world. But on this occasion I wanted to delve into it because it feels like such a shared challenge. And the conversation about screens plays a big role in all of our journeys to live well.

I have found TV just almost impossible to regulate. They always want more, they say they’ll watch something but then, as I said, they flick between stuff (and we all know the constant flicking between content is terrible for us) and they just stop being themselves.

I also really want them to be able to sit with boredom, with quiet and to be able to entertain themselves. I think that’s essential to learning to live well, something so many of us struggle with.

I’ve spent the last decade trying to learn to regulate my nervous system, my emotions, myself. I know I can’t wave a magic wand for the girls and make their lives perfect, but I’d like to lay the foundations for that regulation from the get go.

So, I just knew we had to go cold turkey and have a screen-free summer.

What does that look like? They have tablets when we are on an aeroplane. I’m very happy to bend the rules there because it’s so easy to explain why it’s an exception and it’s easier for everyone – other passengers top of that list. Then otherwise, when we’re home, pretty much no TV and, most importantly, no unsupervised TV.

A couple of times a week we can watch a movie. They’ll pick the movie, then we take the controller so they actually have to sit and watch the movie, absorb themselves in the plot and not say, “Bored of this, onto the next,” and reduce their attention spans further. It also means they don’t start watching the vlogs that have now appeared on Netflix, which I think are truly horrendous and I feel set a horrible example for them. Whereas I couldn’t be happier for them to watch Moana, Zootropolis etc. They’re great films. We’ll absolutely go to the cinema a few times too, can’t wait to see Toy Story 5.

On the train to London yesterday, I’d normally have allowed a tablet, but no, instead we did sticker books, played noughts and crosses and then when I read my book, Skye wrote in her notebook and then showed me that she’d written a song. May meanwhile has been filling a notebook with “fashion styles”. She used a stencil to draw out loads of clothes and then asks which ones we want to buy from her shop. We’re 10 days in and their creativity really is coming out. They’re also more even-keeled and better able to play by themselves for much, much longer.

Last night they asked again for TV, but gave up after one or two tries and went off and played for over an hour by themselves, filling their time with all sorts of creative, imagination games.

All the advice I got was to just hold strong. Most people said it would take 3–4 days for them to mostly stop asking, accept it was a no and get on with life. I’d say that was about right for us, the asking has really dwindled, they’re only asking once or twice a day now.

I explained to them how it affected their brains – I told them it made their brains smaller and mushier and that it was harder for them to be really happy – and I think they got the concept and that I was trying to help them, rather than be controlling for the sake of it. And then empower them, tell them that you know they’re creative and have loads of ideas of what to do, that you believe in their creativity and ability to do fun things.

The other piece of advice I got was to ensure you’re available at the start to support ideas for play, e.g. crafts that they need help with, and to leave out fun things to play with. We bought new fluffy notebooks, a couple of sticker books and some drawing boards, all of which really helped. The drawing boards have been amazing, I got them at Flying Tiger, and they are so good for hangman, writing notes etc.

I’ll keep you posted on how the next few weeks and months unfold but so far, so good. I just realised I was sleepwalking into screens playing a central role in their lives and their downtime, and I just don’t think it’ll help them on their own journeys to happiness later down the line. I mean there’s a reason I bought a Brick and physically lock myself out of the ability to constantly scroll! I’ve been working so hard on regulating my own screen time and I know I’m so much happier when there’s less of it in my life.

Would LOVE to hear from you guys on this one. Anyone doing something similar, thinking about it or maybe you’re further ahead on the journey? Any tips, ideas that we can share between us would be hugely appreciated, I’m sure.

Otherwise, have a great week.

Love, Ella x

P.S. meditation classes will resume next Thursday and I will send out the links later in the week. Can’t wait to see you then