The Tech Timeout Challenge

Thank you to Foresters for sponsoring this post.

“Can I just watch Wild Kratts?” Colum said, already halfway to the TV.

“Dinner is going to be ready in, like, five minutes. So I don’t think —”

The TV was turned on and Irene instantly materialized to join him. Well, fine.

“Mary,” I called down to the playroom. “You want to watch TV with Colum? You want to see some animals on TV? Mary likes animals.”

She’s really too young to be downstairs by herself and I was trying to get dinner finished.I strained the pasta and then, just before adding the penne to the sauteed veggies, I picked up my phone and checked in with Twitter. I replied to a couple people and double checked that I hadn’t missed any important emails at the end of the business day.

“Guys, dinners ready.”

“…”

“Dinner’s ready! It’s served! Guys!”

“…”

“COLUM. COLUM. COLUM!”

“What?”

“Pause that show. Dinner is ready.”

“Oh.”

They all came tumbling into the kitchen and climbed onto their stools. Mary and Irene both ate the noodles and sausage, ignoring the perfectly seasoned Ontario asparagus, what is their problem, and red pepper. Then Irene was suddenly back in the living room with the TV and Colum was about to abandon his own meal half-eaten to join her.

“No,” I said and marched over to the TV. “Nobody gets to watch anything until everybody is finished eating. And then you can finish this episode and that is it.”

They watched the rest of the show and then an episode of Doc McStuffins, I think. I don’t know. I was on my phone.

Not pictured: The glow of the tablet streaming Netflix on Irene’s lap.

Do my kids watch too much TV? Yes, omg, a thousand times yes. It is probably my number one source of mom guilt, especially for Irene who doesn’t nap anymore but is only in school half days. Our routine is for me to let her watch a couple shows while Mary naps and I tie up some loose ends at the computer. (Depending on how pressing those loose ends are, it could be more than a couple shows.)  This would be fine except then she also watches whatever Colum turns on in the evening and is forever making off with the tablet behind my back to get another screen-time fix.

Then, of course, Colum can fall into an Angry Birds wormhole with the best of them and Mary really shouldn’t be watching anything before the age of two, so even the ten minutes of Dora or whatever that she’ll sit through here or there is guilt-inducing. Okay, fine, and I guess I could be a little more present too when I’m with the kids. And Ed and I could certainly make more of our short evenings together if we’d put down our phones. If only there were some sort of challenge that we could WIN AT to motivate us.

Ahem.

Let me present the Tech Timeout Challenge by life insurance provider, Foresters. It’s simple, really. You commit to spending one hour a day tech-free for the next week as a family. How hard could that be? You should do it!

We, on the other hand, will be extending the challenge to last all summer. That’s right, as part of the blog campaign, my whole family has agreed to turn off, shut down or otherwise put aside all high-tech gadgets for an hour a day ALL SUMMER LONG. So help me god.

Proof. That’s not legally binding, is it?

I am going to come right out and predict that we won’t be perfect. For one, there are days when we are simply not together for an entire hour as a family. The odd man out will likely be exempt from the challenge on days like that. Also, Ed and I both use Twitter and Facebook as integral parts of our jobs. I can usually manage to step away from the social media for a few hours to no ill-effect. But Ed covers Rob Ford for a newspaper and, well, you just never know when something is going to break and he’ll really need to be on top of that in real time.

But other than that, I think we’ll be fine. Better than fine, in fact. I love the idea of an after-dinner family activity all summer long. And I especially like that I won’t have to be the bad guy. It’s the pledge, kids! What can I do?

How long do you give us before we fold? Do you think we can do it? Could you?

This post was generously sponsored by life insurance provider Foresters, but the opinions and images are my own. For more information, visit www.techtimeout.com.