Mummy vacation care
Just a quick post today — I’m short on time now that it is school holidays, but I have been dwelling on previous post about children and creativity and what to do with them through the holidays. Now that I am working from home, they do not need to go to vacation care programs. I am the vacation care program! But I am in competition with their screens. The lure of screens seems to be stronger than anything else, and honestly, some days it feels like a battle I am losing before I have even had my first coffee.
I want to be clear — I am not one of those parents who thinks screens are the devil. They are not. Used well, they can be brilliant. Educational, creative, connecting. But in our house, left to their own devices (pun fully intended), my kids will default to screens every single time. Every. Single. Time. And I struggle with that.
Too much screen time
My children use their screens too much. They watch television too much. I know “too much” differs from person to person, family to family, but I am not happy about the amount of time my children are on their screens. I can get them to turn them off but I have trouble keeping them off. They might start on another activity but as soon as they get bored of that — and let’s be honest, boredom sets in quickly when you are used to the constant stimulation of a screen — back they go. It is their default position.
It doesn’t seem to matter what limits we try to put in place. We always experience what I think of as “limit creep.” Unless we are constantly monitoring what they are doing, they find any opportunity to turn the screens back on again. They do not seem able to self-regulate their screen time — but perhaps that is an unrealistic expectation! I mean, plenty of adults I know can’t self-regulate their screen time either (myself included if I am being truly honest).
What I want for my children — what I think is really important — is that they are active and creative. That they know how to entertain themselves. That they can sit with a bit of boredom and come out the other side having made something, done something, imagined something. Screens get in the way of that, especially for my boys, my younger two. During the school term, there is built-in creativity and activity. But come the holidays, left to themselves, they would happily turn into sloths. And I get it. I’m not against a bit of slothing around — downtime is important and a break from the hustle and bustle of the school term is genuinely good for them. I just don’t want them sitting idle on screens the entire holiday.
The screen-free month experiment
A couple of years ago, I made a snap decision in a moment of pure frustration and instituted a screen-free month in our house. All screens surrendered. TV not allowed. My husband and I had to join in too — work use only, no Facebook, no movies, nothing. I braced myself for the fallout.
I was absolutely shocked at how successful it was.
The kids, after the initial adjustment period (which I won’t pretend was painless — there was some drama), stopped asking for their screens altogether. They found other ways to entertain themselves. They read. They played outside. They built things and drew things and made up games. And to my great surprise, the house became really peaceful. Because they were not at me constantly asking when they could turn their screens back on, the tension just… dissolved. The “I’m bored”s all but disappeared too. It was genuinely lovely.
At the end of the month I considered it a great success. I felt proud of us all.
And then we let the screens back in.
Within days — not weeks, days — everything snapped back to exactly how it had been before. The arguments about screen time returned. The “he has had more time than me” returned. The “I’m bored” the moment a screen was taken away returned. It was as if the screen-free month had never happened. Whatever habits or interests or self-sufficiency I had hoped they might carry forward simply evaporated. They had completely lost touch with their ability to entertain themselves.
That was a bit deflating, I am not going to lie.
And so here we are — still looking for the balance. Still figuring it out. I don’t think I am alone in this, and I don’t think there is a perfect answer. But I keep trying, because I really do believe it matters.
Mission creativity and activity
So it is officially mission creativity and activity at our house these holidays! I should mention I am not very well at the moment — I picked up a cold late last week and my energy levels are low — so I am not going to be overzealous about it. I am not going to turn these holidays into some kind of enrichment bootcamp. But I am going to be intentional about it, and I will let you know how we get on. There will be screen time, absolutely. But balanced with screen-free activities.
And it has actually started pretty well.
Yesterday we had a new fridge delivered and I asked the delivery guys to leave the box. Now, I know this sounds very 1987, but I am here to tell you that a fridge-sized cardboard box still holds enormous magic for children. The boys had so much fun turning it into a Nerf Gun bunker. There was genuine creativity, genuine problem solving, genuine joy — and not a screen in sight.
We also prepared the patterns for our soft toy sewing project from Friday’s post, which I am really excited about. There was Lego building. A trip to the library (always a good move in our house). And my big girl got her homework and dancing practice done, which made her feel very organised and virtuous.
Today we have a trip to the park planned with another family, which will tick the active and social boxes nicely.
It is not a perfect system. Some days will be more successful than others, and there will definitely be screen time. But I am choosing to focus on the wins — the fridge box, the sewing patterns, the library bags full of books — and trust that the small things add up.
I would love to hear from you. How do you balance screen time in the holidays? Do you have any go-to activities that your kids actually get excited about? Please share in the comments — I think we could all do with the ideas!
