Changes

I'm starting with the Mom in the mirror
I'm asking her to change her ways
No message could have been any clearer
If you want to make your home a better place
Take a look at yourself and make a change

It started with small clues that something was wrong. The boys stopped wanting to play outside. Then even Emmett, my die-hard social kid, didn't want to have play dates with friends after school. They didn't want to go to the pool or the playground or take a walk around the neighborhood. I thought they were just going through a phase, or getting older (what? They're 8 and 5!). The problem was right in front of my face but I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to have to admit it. Because then I would have to do something about it. What is it, you ask?

Screens.

TV, iPhones, iPad, Kindles, GameCube, Xbox. We have them all. And it's all they ever want to do. When they're not playing on screens they're watching TV shows where someone is playing a video game and narrating what they're doing as they're playing. It's ridiculous. And its gotten out of control at our house. From the time they get home from school until at least dinner time and even sometimes after dinner until bedtime, it's screens. One after the other until the batteries are all dead and every device is charging.

This past school year when I would pick them up from school, the first thing out of their mouths would be "Can I watch TV? Can I play my phone when we get home?" Even if I packed a snack and planned a playdate with friends, they would whine and say they just wanted to go home. And I would get mad and lecture them about how real life experiences are so much more fun than fake worlds on screens. And so we would go and meet friends and they would play for a while before asking when it was time to go home. Owen, who is not as social, would typically be the first to start whining, whereas Emmett would play well and wait until we were in the car on the way home to frantically ask if he still had enough time for screens before dinner or before bedtime. Heaven forbid our fun time with friends should cut into his precious Minecraft time. I knew something had to give.

And so I began to hatch my scheme. I read an article about letting kids have an "old fashioned summer" where they ran through sprinklers, ate popsicles, played in the creek, climbed trees, and caught fireflies. Where they have time to be bored and come up with ways to entertain themselves like using their imaginations and making things out of cardboard boxes. That's how I remember summer when I was growing up and I want that for my kids.

Of course there are a few differences in my life now than what my life was like as a kid. First of all, we live in a suburban development with a very small yard. (We're hoping to upgrade soon to something bigger, but that remains to be seen.) It's no longer safe to kick your kids out the door beyond a fenced in backyard. You can't let your kids run barefoot in the yard and roll in the grass because they'll surely get a tick bite and die. Don't feed them popsicles with all that sugar and artificial dyes and preservatives. Creek water is surely polluted and climbing trees means you'll end up in the ER defending yourself to a social worker when your kid falls and breaks their arm. But I digress from my original point.

We are giving up screens for the summer. Period.

Yes, it's going to be hard. Yes, they will whine. Yes, they will drive me crazy. Yes, they will want 5,000 snacks and beg me to play with them all day and trash the house with 10,000 toys. But I believe in this plan. I am determined to make it work. We are going to have the summer of all summers, making real memories, out in the real world, with real people and nature. And it's going to be messy and exhausting and glorious!