Do you need to reduce the amount of time you and your kids spend in front of screens on a daily basis? The answer to that question for most of us is a resounding, yes!
Studies show that, on average, kids can spend up to 7 hours in front of a screen ( be that a TV, phone, or tablet) every day, and that isn’t including the screen-time they might be getting at school too.
Things don’t get much better for adults either, with most office jobs requiring adults to spend hours sitting behind laptops in a very sedentary way for up to 9 hours a day. Most adults then return him to spend time in front of the TV, their laptops, phones, or even game consoles to unwind.
Reducing your screen time probably won’t come easily, especially if you’re a family who are pretty addicted to their screens, but it’s not impossible, and it should definitely be something that you put in your New Year’s resolutions.
Here are some ideas to limit screen time.
Game Together
Many families find it hard to reduce screen time because they’re playing their own video-games, mainly being the modern linear games which are usually made up of long story arcs or long seasons for sports games that require a lot of time
If you can’t face giving up gaming just yet, perhaps it might be a good idea to switch to some old-school arcade games instead. The retro arcade games from homeleisuredirect.com will give you the gaming thrill, without sucking you into losing hours on play due to being designed for more short bursts of play. You could also try boardgames and various sports to get you away from the screen altogether.
Exercise Together
If you have a pretty sedentary lifestyle, chances are you could do with a bit more exercise, but even at the gym now there are screens installed in multiple machines, so what should you do?
Go old-fashioned and grab yourself some push bikes and get outdoors. Most cities now have cycle lanes and cycle paths along with the quieter parks having routes through and around them. It’s a great opportunity to get out in the fresh air and get moving, away from the screen.
Forage Together
This is a tip you might not see often enough, but it’s actually really cool, especially if you have kids!
Foraging can take many forms, from simple blackberry picking to scrumping for Apples (which is an old English tradition) and even a little more advanced foraging such as mushroom hunting and learning about wild medicines.
The great thing about foraging is that it can be done year-round, although admittedly there is less to forage in winter, and giving kids a better understanding of their environment makes them more attuned to the changes taking place, such as climate change.
Get a good book or two, and think about taking a notebook with you to document your findings. You may even want to take a camera to make identification later on much easier.
When you are ready to give in to a bit of screen time, there are lots of wild food, wild medicine, and general foraging Facebook groups that are really useful to join too, putting all of that saved up screen time to good use!
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