Good Lifestyle

A Friday night, my husband and me and our twokids curved in the family room forwatch a movie together. We have prepared the popcorn and everything, but the poor ironman on the screen made no attention.

My husband was working on his last creation inMinecraft. My 12 year old girl played another video game. And my 14 year old son watched a video of YouTube, laughing so hard at what he had stumbled on the fact that he decided totext to us-Yes, while we were all sitting in the roomtogether.

The text alert interrupted my shareScrolling of social mediaand shook me long enough to finally realize that we wereA family of addictions. The screens had become our entertainment, our source of information, our social life and, more recently and frightening, our way of communicating.

Things had to change and they had to change radically. So, I did what the modern parent would do: I went upstairs to our modem and I just turned off.

As extremely as it can ring, I knew it would work. My father-in-law was actually inspiration. When my husband grew, his father blushed a wall wall on the family's television. Every time he thought my husband and his brother wereteleviseHe would walk to the switch and shut it off. He would say that his sons had to have been short in their former television, and they would believe it. Everyone will leave the room andBook or the head outdoors instead.

I went back down and, without screens to distract them, my husband and my children looked at me directly against me for what felt like the first time for weeks. I told everyone that the internet was acting and we had toPlay a board game instead of. I took out a family of Catan's favorite settlers and hopes for the best. There was a little depression, a resentment, complainants. But in a few minutes we were negotiating cards, trade stories and, above all,Negotiation screens for the conversation. It was proof that sometimes old ways are the best ways.

Our nuclear family may not be four, but we had 12 devices between us, which means that there were about three per person. It's hard to say how we got here. Perhaps our collective dependency started when we stopped building Lego turns with our toddlers and gave them an iPad to do it numerically.

But the dependence of our family has really become serious when our two children got their own digital devices. Our daughter was 8 years old and our son was 10 years old when they each have their beautiful, that I admitted, they used more for games than for reading. Then, at 11 and 13 years, respectively, our daughter had an iPod and our son had an iPhone. I think everything was downhill.

According toAffuctive dechetitime-A Smartphone application that monitors time spent on digital devices - the average person spends three hours and 15 minutes on their phone every day. We were well above average, that's for sure.

After this fateful cinema night, my husband and I decided to have a family reunion to talk about what is needed to change. We wanted to include our children in these decisions, because we knew they had to think more about their own well-being as Tweens and Teens. Initially, it's not good. But, after a lot of discussions, from the door of the door, and a little Whining (who came from me, certainly), we created a plan to come back to a plusbalanced relationship between them and with our screens.

We have establisheddays without screen, Meaning on Mondays during Thursday, we will not look at TV or play video games. This part was not too difficult to see that during school evenings, there was not much time for downtime anyway.

As for Friday to Sunday, everyone agreed to turn off his appliances at 7 o'clock. We have removed applications and allsocial media of our smartphones. We decreased for a single television. We eliminated paid - forstreaming services And we dropped our cable to only the basic channels.

I will be honest, these first days were not easy. We all wandered around the house, uncertain enough to do with our hands. My husband and I continued to check our phones to find that there was nothing there to entertain us (in addition to looking at our bank accounts or check the weather).

My son looking for refuge inhis xbox Only to find my husband had hid the remotes in a locked box. (Like Father, like son, right?) Once again, it might seem extreme, but my husband created the box not only for the dependence of my son, but as well. He also had to withdraw from temptation.

In the end, I was the one who found our new life without the most difficult screen. I work at home most days on a laptop and my smartphone acts as a conduit betweenmy inbox and my clients. Putting the phone back and ignore notifications, buzz noises and pinens of Facebook messages turned out more difficult than expected.

I decided to turn off the sound alerts from my phone and I eliminated most notifications. And, the days I'm really debating, I'll put my phone in another room entirely.

It's been a few months since we started thatDigital diet, and that's fine. In fact, we are not just surviving without our screens, we are booming. I feel like I have my concentration back. I picked up a book the other day and I had the first six chapters. My children say they do not miss Instagram or Twitter. In fact, they started talking to my husband and me more than we are no longer two non-synchronized parents glued to our phones.

The other morning, my husband and I sat together on coffee in front of the children who woke up and spoke for one hour.Speakingto another. Do not send SMS, do not comment, but actually talk. In a way, it seems both novel and old-fashioned. Without our screens filtering our time together, we all have become closer and as a parent, it's really all I could never want. And for more information on device dependency, check20 signs that you are addicted to your smartphone.

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