We don’t have a TV in the apartment.
My wife and I both got rid of our own before we even knew each other. When we met, it turned out to be one of the things we agreed on, and we decided to keep it that way. We have kept that promise.
That does not mean we are free of screens though. We have two phones, my wife’s and my own, and one tablet that my family gave us years ago. Honestly, I hate all three. We do our best to stay off them, but it is impossible not to get pulled in. I am writing this on my phone as we speak. We have laptops for work too, but those are controlled, work only, and I actually like those. They have a clear purpose and they stay in their lane.
The screens I cannot stand are the ones that creep into everything else.
Here is the part about the kids that I struggled with the most. Screens are bad, but also good in small doses. The problem was never a single cartoon. The problem was what the cartoon did to the rest of the day.
We used to let them watch in the morning when they woke up… like we did when we were kids… then we noticed the pattern. They would get lost in the story, fully inside it, and when it ended, real life just could not compete. It was not interesting enough anymore so they would fall apart, and the whole day would turn into a storm of mischief. The screen did not entertain them. It raised the bar so high that nothing after it could measure up.
My architect point of view and what I have noticed.
A small home has very few zones. When one activity sets the emotional temperature of the space, everything else has to live in the weather it leaves behind.
In a big house, a screen can be contained to one room. You walk away and you are somewhere else. In a small home there is no “away”. Whatever happens in the main room is what happens to everyone. So when a screen pulls the children into an intense, fast, story-driven world first thing in the morning, the whole apartment has to absorb the crash when it ends. There is nowhere for that energy to go and nowhere for anyone to escape it.
The screen was not just affecting the kids. It was setting the atmosphere of the entire home for hours.
The change.
Recently we made a big change. No screens for the kids until after lunch. We do our best to not be on ours as well.
The first few days were really tough. Hard on them and hard on us, but it was all worth it.
Now when they get up, they drink water only, and we let them choose a book to read while breakfast is being made. It is crazy to me that just switching this one thing removed the storm completely. No screen in the morning, no crash, no chaos.
After lunch we have a midday quiet time. We find something on the tablet, we search for older cartoons with a slow pace. It is difficult, but there are okay shows and movies out there if you look. Once the movie is over, it is play time again, or creative time, or the park.
At dinner we watch a show like Curious George or Franklin for a few episodes, and then it is bathroom, brush teeth, and bed.
I still do not like screens, but at least now we set the boundaries, and the kids adjusted. No more complete chaos… (a lot less stress)
One thing to try this week.
Look at where a screen sits in your day, and move it once.
Not remove it. Move it. If it is the first thing in the morning, push it to after a meal. If it is the last thing at night, put something quiet between it and sleep. You are not trying to win a war against screens. You are testing what changes when the screen is no longer the thing that sets the tone.
Watch what happens to the hours around it. Often the screen itself was never the problem. Its position in the day was.
What is one screen habit in your home that quietly shapes the mood of everything around it?
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