In her memoir, Untamed, Glennon Doyle wrote:

“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt's guitar and start strumming.”

I want to add to that.

When we give our children cell phones or tablets or set them in front of the television to be babysat day in and day out by the convenience of electronics, we’re stealing something very special from them and from ourselves.

We’re depriving them of the training they need to have a successful life, the close relationship they desire with their mom and their dad, and the one-on-one time with a positive role model who can show them how to overcome obstacles and navigate the stressors and challenges they face every day as a child with autism. We are stealing their opportunity to practice self-care, their chance to expand their minds and grow new neural pathways, and the time they could have been developing calming strategies, coping skills, and techniques for making it through life with a peaceful mind.

We are depriving ourselves of that precious time with our children. They will only be young for 18 short years. Before you know it, they’ll be moving on with their life… a life that may not involve you as much or even at all except for a call to check in now and again.

How to Initiate Family Time

I urge you to take away the devices. Give your children time to be kids. Let their imagination lead the way.

Let them play outside, climb trees, make-believe, and hide from imaginary dragons. Give them paper to make airplanes that fly in the air force and shoot down the bombers. Teach them how to make homemade play dough. Help them create a model volcano!

We set a rule long ago that each of our children get one hour of fun screen-time daily and 30 minutes of learning time on the screen. They can do whatever they want during that fun hour, but it’s one hour max plus their 30 minutes of learning-time, which must be learning games or apps or educational videos.

We also set a time each day that all devices must be turned off and family time commences. And, yes, “all devices” means OUR devices too. For us, the device down-time is from 6:00 in the evening until 9:00, which is bedtime for our youngest two.

During this time, we play board games, cards, or dice, sit around and chat, read books together, paint or do crafts, or any other number of fun activities. Of course, watching television is out since television is a device. It works well for us.

The Impact of Device-Free Time

I want to encourage you to do something similar FOR your family… for you and your children. I say FOR because this will make a BIG difference in your children, their behavior, your family dynamics, your relationships, and even in you.

You don’t have to spend a whole three hours every night without devices. But try one hour, or an hour and a half. Make it a priority. And you’ll see your children start to grow.

They’ll grow in ways they would have never grown without the time to use their imagination and without the hours spent with their mom and dad. Not only will they grow closer to you and each other, but they’ll grow stronger emotionally, socially, psychologically, neurologically, and more.

Let Me Help!

If you need any help with initiating a device-free time or getting a family-time set up with your child, please feel free to reach out to me!