Screen Free Days in Costa Rica

The effects of screen time and how much/when to limit it is one of the parenting decisions I think about most often. I have read numerous books about this topic. My book club read The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt. It was one of my favorite discussions and I would highly recommend the book. In addition to thinking about the amount of screen time our kids consume, I think about it for myself as well.

The Digital Creep and Noticing When Enough is Enough

As a family, we work hard to limit the amount of screen time we all consume. Dave and I are lock step in this area of parenting, which makes most decisions pretty easy. Back home, we have some pretty firm screen time limits and for the most part we have kept those limits while traveling as well. However, sometimes there feels like a bit of a creep to the amount of screens we are all consuming. Between an hour of Duolingo, daily journals on Google Docs, looking up information about where we are, blogging, taking pictures and videos with our phones, and keeping in touch with friends and families it can become a lot. I am grateful for these amazing devices that allow us to document this adventure and keep in touch with everyone back home. Google Translate and Google Maps are unbelievably useful! But we’ve realized sometimes we just need to completely disconnect.

The Introduction of Screen Free Days

We have implemented two screen free days since we’ve been gone. One while we were in La Fortuna, and another one a few days ago here in Jaco. These have not been planned events. The decision has gone something like this. I feel overwhelmed, I’m sick of seeing everyone with their head down, and we are all a little bit cranky. I ask Dave how he feels about a completely screen free day and he quickly agrees. We then declare to the kids there will be no screens for the day.

Back home, we only allow screen time for a limited time on Fridays and Saturdays. We rarely watch TV and if we do it’s our traditional family movie night on Fridays. There’s still screen time happening though. Three out of the four of us have phones, and when the kids are in school a lot of things are done online. Our screen free days here have been the first time we’ve had 100% screen free days. No phones, no computers, and we even eliminated Kindles. While I don’t typically consider Kindle reading ‘screen time’, we felt the need to do it here. Alexis can easily spend an entire day reading, and when given no other option Braxton will read a lot as well. What we all needed was zero input.

Observations – No Screen, No Decisions, Just Presence

Reflecting on these screen free days, there are several things we have observed. The first one is that everyone’s mood appears to lift almost immediately. Is this affect because we aren’t looking at a screen, or is it because we are interacting more with each other? My guess is both.

It’s amazing how simply taking the option of screens off the table can eliminate decisions. When I don’t take my phone with me to the beach I don’t have to wonder if I should take a picture, I can just be in the moment. When I’m feeling bored I don’t wonder if I should listen to a podcast, or read up on some news, or text a friend. I just simply do none of those things.

When there isn’t the distraction or pull of a phone, conversations last longer. When the kids have nothing else to do, we all talk more.

The Stillness Between Notifications

The days looked a lot like any other days we’ve had in Costa Rica, just without a screen. We went to the beach and for a long walk. We spent time at the pool and playing games. The kids used up all of the paper we brought, so we walked to the store and bought each of us cheap notebooks to write/draw in. We sat outside a lot and watched our surroundings. They were really great days. Aside from random thoughts that would come in and out of my head, it was definitely being where my feet are.

We all checked our messages at the end of the day to make sure we didn’t miss anything urgent from family or our property manager back home. Both kids felt that not having their Kindles was the hardest. I’m guessing that is because they’ve never had limits on those. Braxton asked me if we were going to do these days regularly. We don’t have plans to make this a routine during the year, but will definitely declare screen free days whenever we feel we need it. In a world of constant input, it’s important to completely disconnect.