Today, I’m going to do a very scary thing.
I am going to limit my 9 year old’s time on his electronic devices. Terrifying, right?
There will be step-by-step levels of trauma.
- My son will surely begin a debate about how more time playing Fortnite is beneficial for his social skills (because he plays with friends online).
- My son will lose that debate and change tactics — I predict stomping and grumbling.
- I will forget all of my kindness training and begin yelling. We call this the eruption of “Mount Saint Mommy.”
- Two hours later, everything will calm down and my son will declare he’s bored.
- I will provide an impromptu list of approved activities. He will shoot down all of them.
- He will eventually agree to play outside. Ten minutes later he will declare it’s too cold. (He’s right. We live in South Dakota.)
- I will feel obligated to actually play with my son which I don’t want to do because I’m working. Or reading a book. Or watching The Office.
We have always had solid limits in our house on electronics, but something strange happened when we were all forced to stay home all day, everyday. We just sort of exchanged those rules for C’est la vie! and Carpe Diem! and Et tu Brute?
Okay, not Et tu Brute. But you get my point.
I’d love to present my son with a list of a gazillion kid-approved fun unplugged activities, but let’s be honest — we wouldn’t read them anyway.
So let’s do this instead…
Will you please share one thing you did as a kid that brought you great joy? Just one memory of the good old days so we can bring them back to life.
Thank you and God bless you. And God bless me, because I’m about to go talk to my son.