Screen-Free Week 2014 Starts Tomorrow

Posted on May 4, 2014 at 8:58 am

Check out these ideas to help your family detox from television and the internet. And before you turn off your computers for a week, watch this to remind you what we miss when we look at screens instead of each other. Be sure to stay for the end.

Some Scary Facts to Follow Screen-Free Week

Posted on May 7, 2013 at 3:59 pm

For a look at the scope and consequences of today’s media-saturated culture on children, check out these charts and an article from Utne about the impact of nonstop corporate marketing through kids’ media.

Marketing affects what children want to eat, wear, and play, and with whom they play. It also shapes what they learn, what they want to learn, and why they want to learn. And it primes them to be drawn into, exploited, and influenced by marketing efforts in schools.

Screen-Free Week 2013

Posted on April 29, 2013 at 8:00 am

It used to be TV Turn-Off Week, but now we are surrounded by screens so it has to go farther. This is a great week to spend time outdoors, read books on paper, and use meal-time and travel time for family discussions. Resources are available online and at your school and library. Common Sense Media has a great list of books to get kids hooked on reading. And every parent should read Dwight Garner’s beautiful essay about the all-too-brief era of reading aloud to his kids. The goal of this week should be to help you start habits and rituals that will endure even when the screens go back on.

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Happy Screen-Free Week!

Posted on April 30, 2012 at 10:25 am

Nationwide Screen-Free Week begins today through May 6.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has a list of some of the hundreds of activities planned by Screen-Free Week organizers:

Read Boston has asked 4,000 students in 12 partner schools to take the screen-free pledge! Children who return their tracking logs after break will receive a prize pack with items that promote fun (and learning) without screens.
Screen-Free Kansas City and the Early Years Institute in Long Island have both partnered with local businesses to offer discounted and free fun activities every day of Screen-Free Week!
Unplug and Play in Bozeman, Montana has organized daily events including free admission to the Museum of the Rockies, a Bike Rodeo, and Family Science Night at the Children’s Museum.Portland (Oregon) Parks and Recreation and Kaiser Permanente are offering activities including a tea party for young children, Family Game Night, and Messy Art!
St. John Lutheran Church in Fargo, ND is offering a Screen-Free Fellowship with games, nature activities, invigorating conversations . . . and ice cream!
The children’s department at the North Tonawanda (New York) Library is hosting events every evening including a Scavenger Hunt, a Craft Night, and Plant a Seed for Spring.
First Five Inyo County in Bishop, California is celebrating life outside the box. Families who send a picture of their child 5 or younger doing a screen-free activity win a free toy or game from their treasure chest! The Inland Preschool in Calimesa, CA is hosting a Screen-Free Week Trike-a-Thon.
Oakland Steiner School in Rochester Hills, Michigan is hosting Screen-Free activities all week including a Scavenger Hunt, Table Talk Dinner Game, Play with a Box Day, and a May Day celebration! The Francis Parker Afterschool Program in Chicago is asking parents and teachers to sponsor a student for charity; the longer the student goes screen-free, the more money raised!

CCFC’s List of 101 Screen-Free Activities includes:

Listen to the radio.
Write an article or story.
Paint a picture, a mural, or a room.
Write to the President, your Representative, or your Senators.
Read a book. Read to someone else.
Learn to change the oil or tire on a car. Fix something.
Write a letter to a friend or relative.
Make cookies, bread, or jam and share with a neighbor.

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Screen-Free Week April 18-24

Posted on April 16, 2011 at 3:45 pm

It used to be called TV-Turnoff Week but that was so 1990’s. Now it’s Screen-Free Week — one week for families to turn off the screens and reconnect with old-fashioned in-person interaction, to look each other in the eyes, spend time outside, cook together, read books on paper, daydream, play board games and cards, and, perhaps most important, go for more than 20 seconds without being interrupted by buzzing, beeping, ring-tones, or tweets. It’s also a chance to participate in the many Screen-Free Week events organized around the country. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has a fact sheet for kids and resources for parents and teachers, including an excellent Live Outside the Box Toolkit from Seattle and King County. Screen-Free Week is endorsed by a wide range of educators and health professionals including the American Medical Association, the National Education Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I was disappointed to see Double X blogger KJ Dell’Antonia explain why she and her family will not be observing Screen-Free Week, apparently because it is inconvenient. Without television as a soporofic,

my four children will be running wild around me, invariably losing their generally excellent ability to self-entertain and peacefully interact at approximately 5:00 daily, precisely the moment when I’m desperately trying to finish up the last bits of work for the day and start dinner—without once resorting to the highly addictive, all-child-inclusive form of entertainment that is Phineas and Ferb.

She doesn’t try to suggest that there is anything beneficial to her children in her decision. It is Dell’Antonia who wants to continue to rely on television to keep her children quiet and does not even want to take one week to try to teach them that they have other alternatives — like reading a book, drawing a picture, playing a game, or setting the table. She has to admit, “I support the idea of a “screen-free week,” but I support it as a family project, not a top-down imposition of a temporary new screen rule.” The entire idea of Screen-Free Week is as a family project. I am certain that children will be so happy to have their parents put down their Blackberries that they will be more than willing to miss another rerun of Phineas and Ferb and that it is well worth it for everyone to learn that media is not the only way to spend quiet time.