Year of living CREATIVELY (otherwise called, the year we gave up TV)

the backstory

On a hike with our boys, my husband lovingly turned back and suggested we give up TV for the year. I, being the gracious and ever so adoring wife, told him he was mad (or something along those lines), but after a very long, and kind of grotesquely overdue pregnant pause, I asked what the parameters would be. Truthfully, I was intrigued by the idea. After some discussion, we decided that we would unplug our TV, cancel Netflix and fill our evenings with art projects. After some intense negotiation, we decided that we could watch TV at other peoples houses (and that the Outlander was fair game).

This sounded rather fabulous at first. Then it hit me. 
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As a stay-at-home mama, I LOVE TV for the affordable babysitting service it provides. Making supper with two ("hangry") boys is awful, but throw a little Paw Patrol on and voila! Peace & Quiet. Want to take a shower post run? Turn on TVO (Ontario Public Broadcasting) and voila! 30 minutes of blissful free time. Pouring rain outside? Pull up the cushions, whip up some popcorn and voila! A movie day is ours to be shared and parenting is easy peasy! 

However, when thinking of every single reason to NOT watch TV in 2016, I couldn’t argue with my husband that turning OFF the TV often ramps up our children into insatiable, whingeing monsters. The “more more more” demands take over rational thought and the threat of, “That’s it! You’ve now lost TV for the week!” came out at least once, if not twice a month. 

And so, after talking with numerous friends on New Year's Eve about our possible resolution, I was encouraged by their, “It won’t last” attitude. Despite how awful this sounds, like Eddy the Eagle, I’m always up to the challenge of  proving others (including myself) wrong. Ever so reluctantly, I agreed to stop watching TV. It didn’t stop me, however, from totally panicking at 11:30pm and bringing in 2016 on a rather low marital note. But that is another blog post on partner communication! 

Now first, let me explain what TV looked like in our family. Truth is, we didn't watch much.  For my husband and I, we would come downstairs from 8:30 - 10pm and watch a Netflix movie or Art documentary once or twice a week. For my children, their TV time ebbed and flowed depending on schedule and weather. For a while, it was Wacky Movie Wednesdays and possibly an hour or two on Saturday and Sunday mornings. My kids are almost always up by 6:30am. As a result of this untimely awakening, we had a brainfart of parental awesomeness that involved letting the kids watch morning TV on condition that, 1) beds were made, 2) dressed, 3) rooms cleaned, 4) table set, and finally, la piece de resistance, 5) coffee made! Yes, my 7 and 4 year old made the most delicious (sometime grounds filled, but I could over look that) coffee. Those mornings were my absolute favourite, and giving up TV meant that we had no "incentives" to inspire our children to do all this awesomeness! In the end, I realized that TV was used mostly for Parental Decompression in the evening and Child Incentives for great behaviour for the boys throughout the day. 

Despite all of this, December 31st, 2015, we unplugged the TV, placed three large art pieces in front (the television sits in a hutch) and closed the doors. 

so what’s happened since?

My oldest son was ANGRY. Like really mad at us, and he actually went through stages of grief. Although he probably watched less TV than his brother, and because TV was set up as a reward system, he felt punished. After validating his grief and walking through alternatives to watching TV, he started to shift into acceptance. For example, we went to a toy store to pick up games, set up family game nights, bought and restored a piano, pulled out tons of arts&crafts from the cupboard, committed to going to more Movies at the Theatre, and set up a library station in the living room. 

I would say that the shifts in our family dynamics have been dramatic. For the first month,  the boys asked for screen time or requested that we go to friends’ homes so they could watch TV. Then  the requests started to pare off. O. started playing piano, chess, and drawing. His reading DRAMATICALLY improved and his mood swings lessened. F., meanwhile, still was able to play iPad some days (as I like to shower without interruption). However, he too was playing much more with his brother, learning to negotiate board games without losing it (losing is still a work in progress) and integrating more social and pretend play into his daily world. 

My husband and I decided to make it our "Year of Living Creatively". We read books in the evening or I sewed. We created three large glass mosaics for our living room and kitchen, a large light future made of a nest of copper and a floor to ceiling art installation of National Geographics. My husband even taught himself how to play piano. 

After a year of reflection, we have discovered it to be a great family experiment. We noticed that our boys' ability to transition from activity to activity has improved, my son's "anxiety" (more on that later) has lessened dramatically, and family time has become much more meaningful. Another benefit was noticing that the boys engage in much more  solitary play for at first, my boys needed me to be next to them for all play. I can truly say that they thrived without screen time. 

But, it's now January 31, 2017. Have we brought it back? Not really. Instead, we have set up a weekly "Friday night Movie night" tradition. Funnily enough, the boys simply don't ask us for TV or IPad time that much anymore. They are too engaged in other activities. That's not to say they don't like it - please! They're kids and they love a good animated film or TV show. It's just that they don't ask for it very much and don't seem to "need" it.  In fact, if anyone has a screen time problem, it's me!

now wait a second? Is TV really that bad? 

Absolutely not. However, the research around TV isn’t great news for parents. TV acts as a stimulus and doesn’t give kids the “downtime” for which we may be initially hoping. It can increase a child’s stress baseline, depending on what they are watching, and according to studies, a program like SpongeBob SquarePants, activates the same “fight or flight” responses in the child’s amygdala as something that is actually life or body threatening. Their brain simply isn’t able to differentiate between the two triggering experiences. Furthermore, in a 2011 study published in the medical journal Pediatrics, children who were watching SpongeBob, vs children watching Caillou or drawing, did significantly worse on same test results offered to all three focus groups. 
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Screens in general have made parenting a much more challenging experience. Not just because our children love them, but because WE love them. While texting and driving is now understood to be completely unacceptable, I still see folks using their phones at the supper table, at the playground, during pick-up, when walking, at the coffee shop … pretty much any “free” moment in the day, a screen may not be far away. Our kids see this. The hypocrisy of limiting screen time for our children when we are using them, from the outside, is incredibly unfair. How do I know this? I’m that mama. 
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true confessions

My sister and I speak 2-3 times a day, but as a stay-at-home mama, that means that I’m most likely with my children when I’m speaking with her. Furthermore, until I started to really think about the prevalence of technology in our homes, I didn’t think that I really used it that much. Truth is, I’m often in front of a screen. When I am sewing for birdy&bug, I have a movie playing in the background. When I’m organizing our family schedule, I’m in front of my phone. When I’m cooking, I‘m looking at my iPad for recipes. When I’m reading, I’m on my kobo! My kids often see me on a screen. 

That all being said, I LOVE reading on my Kobo, I love the recipes off my iPad, I need my phone calendar, and I (perhaps not really, but kind of) NEED those background movies to sew. And if all these things bring me joy and make my life easier, then it’s the “WHEN” that I use them that has to shift. 

If my kids are home, I have to remind myself to turn off the technology and save my screen time for after bed (save for the recipe gig). This has been so hard, despite appearing to be so simple. I try to look at my phone once in the morning and once in the afternoon (if my kids are around). I've started reminding myself of the phrase, “texting and parenting” - for some reason this is enough for me to put it away and stay focused on my kids.

Have I mastered walking the precariously fine line between technology and parenting? Hardly, but like so many things about parenting, it’s a practice. And I have seen, time and time again, that practicing Mindful Parenting makes my world (and most likely my kids’ world) a whole lot better.