5 Steps to Less Screen Time

It’s everywhere, and yes, even sometimes in my own house.

Screentime overdose.

It doesn’t take all of the studies that exist to know that our children, and ourselves, are glued to our screens too often. We’re missing out on present moment living due to computers, smartphones, and television. Remember how on weekends, streets used to be lined with children playing? Now, often residential areas are like ghost towns, just because everyone is stuck inside.

And it’s not just our children. We can’t say it is. Facebook and notifications distract us from our family and we offer nothing but an example of distraction; distraction from life itself.

I would love to say that I was a parent that had kept electronics from my children. I was so close, our daughters were 8 before they had ever tried a computer game. Living off grid for a long period of time, without highspeed internet, had kept everything pretty limited. But then we moved, got busy, they had homeschool programs online, we got a shop, and soon our boy wanted to take part in games with his sisters... boom. We were lost.

It happens. It spirals. My last hooray is staying away from smartphones simply because I don’t want to tempt myself.

Life. That’s what’s at risk here. Life and tools for life. I’ve felt my way to the point that, for me, it’s not about keeping my children away from technology, it’s part of their generational make-up, rather I need to help them use it with awareness. We have the opportunity to offer our children solutions, awareness to their focus and attention, as well as, hey, a serious amount of fun play  time. Life flips by while we scan newsfeeds and cat videos... not to mention the numbing effect of violent video games and the emotional turmoil experienced by children in the name of entertainment.  But what’s scarier... if something can be... is the fact that “if you don’t lose it you lose it.” If you don’t know how to follow passions, interests, and wonderment, you lose the ability to experience it at all.

So, here’s my list of 5 things you can do to start curbing screentime. (and please note, there’s not really any “enforced” abandonment of screens entirely. In order to offer awareness and tools for life, we can’t simply restrict and take away. In many ways that simply encourages our children to do it anyway, but not get caught. However, it also means that building awareness takes some time. This isn’t a quick fix and it shouldn’t be. Its foundation building and therefore, a little time makes it a little stronger.)

1)      Play with contrasts.

 Start to draw attention to the emotional affects on each other of computers and games and even tv shows. Become the experiment. As a family, what happens if you only do screens after lunch or at certain times? What happens if you only go on AFTER you go for a walk and get some exercise... why does it feel better? What feels better? How does it affect how you feel and the general feel of the house? Also, if you’re struggling with television screen time, talk about the different feelings of different shows. What do fast and loud shows feel like, compared to slow ones? Look for differences in behaviour when your children are taking part in one form of entertainment and another. When you take part with the contrasting experiences your children aren’t feeling TOLD what to do or feel, but are observing it themselves and then can start to make conscious decisions on what works for each person. This is Screen/emotional education.

2)      Find alternatives.

When we don’t use it, we lose it. If we just tell our kids to get off of the screen, chances are they will be baffled at what to do instead. This isn’t 30 years ago, when childhood was filled with finding things to do. Our children live in a time when they are told what they can do. Chances are few of us still feel comfortable with our children taking off and not telling us where they are going. So, what do they fill their days with? What interests them, sparks them, excites them? What about hobbies and crafts and a huge stack of wood out the back that they can make whatever they want out of. Providing alternatives is providing opportunities... and what’s surprising is that, with those opportunities and alternatives, they rarely want to chose the screen instead. CREATIVE LIVING... is the name of the game.

3)      Be the example.

 It’s true. Each time we don’t know what to do with ourselves and we choose Facebook instead (my personal demon) of finding something creative ourselves... even just playing with our kids, or meditating under the stars, we are saying that life needs to be distracted from. Each time we say “just a minute” because we are surfing the net... we give the permission for our children to zone out on a screen. Ouch. But so true.

4)      Do a family challenge. No Screens (NONE!) for a week.

 Go camping, turn off the wifi, turn off the electricity, do whatever it takes. But just get away from it for one week. Stock up on books and board games... go on midnight walks and crazy times. Have fun. Let awareness build all by itself.

5)      Turn your attention to your children’s time OFF of screens. The truth is that the law of attraction works with everything and the more we notice what’s not working, the more we notice it... more and more and more. Same too though, the more you notice what is working... the cuddle up bedtimes when you talk together, the morning breakfast when everyone chats, or the walks with the dog when everyone gets exercise, the more those will happen, and the more you will notice. If you are totally focused on how much your family is in front of a screen, then no matter how much everyone tries to get off of them, you’ll never notice. The Law of attraction makes it so. So, start looking out for the moments of connection and play... you might be pleasantly surprised.

6 Spiritual Awareness tools to offer our children

When you are a Spiritually Aware Mom , you want to be able to pass on some tidbits of wisdom to your children you’ve learnt along the way. However, unlike organized religion, sometimes it’s a little less structured in the filtering down system and quite honestly, deciphering and figure out the best way of phrasing something can get overwhelming. 

Its sometimes best to pass on a few tools of simple awareness, which then our children  can draw their own conclusions, observe, choose, explore and ask their own questions and the answers can then flow in the right time and space. This allows Spiritual dialogue to come out of a state of our own connection , and our children’s, which is key.

So, I’ve put down a list of the top 5 tools for spiritual awareness. Because let’s face it, sometimes a list is just a nice thing to have.

              Emotional Awareness-when we are aware of how we feel , and honestly can express it, we can use it as our guidance system. As positive spiritual beings, feeling positive emotion is an indicator of feeling as Who We Really Are, feeling like ourselves, negative emotion is simply a sign that we are thinking about things from a perspective different than our true selves.

When our children can sense how they are feeling, they can shift to feel better, to connect, and to have an awareness of what action or inaction to take.

How do you pass on emotional awareness- simple. Simply talk about emotions in your everyday living. Express how you are feeling, ask how your children are feeling, talk about how TV  shows make you feel, or stories. Talk about choosing a story that feels good, talk about not watching something because it makes you feel bad.

A craft that’s a great introduction is to simply get a child to color emotions. Ask them to show you mad, sad, stressed, happy, blissful, excited. What colors, what lines? Even in squiggles a picture can relay feeling and this can be started as young as 2 or 3.

                  Appreciation- When our children feel bad, and know they feel bad, they sometimes want to feel better but don’t know how. Appreciation is a great bridge to feeling good from a bad space. Simply focusing on the emotion of appreciating shifts us emotionally and creates the space we can focus on new thoughts. I like to create lists of appreciation regularly with my kids. From going through the ABCs and finding something to appreciate for each letter when they can’t go to sleep, to focusing on finding 5 things that they appreciate when they are upset or in a tantrum, appreciating makes us feel good. It just does. Our kids feel it strongly and they LOVE to appreciate any little thing. Soon, they’ll be using it all the time.

Note that I used the word Appreciation rather than gratitude. Gratitude, no matter how wonderful to express, doesn’t carry the same feeling space as truly Appreciating. Simply say the two words for a moment, you’ll feel the difference.

               The law of Attraction- we get more of what we send out. Its law. Our children can actually understand this concept really easily. You can explain it in a number of ways. First, we are like magnets, attracting back to us the same as what we send out. If we are stressed we are holding up a stress magnet, we are asking the universe for more of the feeling we are emitting. If we appreciate (there it is again), we are holding up the appreciation magnet and asking for more of that feeling. Each feeling is an energy and radiates from us. We get more of the same every time.

Our children can see this in evidence daily. When they start off a day badly and it never really shifts, when they keep getting hurt, are complaining, and whining, things happen to make them complain more or get hurt more. When good things happen, they build and the day gets better and better. When a child is feeling sorry for themselves, you can pull out the Magnet card and ask them if that’s what they want to hold up. Is this the feeling they want more of? This, in turn creates more awareness of how they feel and what they are attraction.

Another way to explain it is as an echo, echoing back to us. No matter what, we get what we send out. But it’s based on What we ARE, what we are radiating deeply.

              Self appreciation- We are all unique, special individuals and its important our children appreciate who they are. This goes beyond what they look like, although they should always be told they are beautiful/handsome and that they shine. I used to tell my children that before they came the world just wasn’t quite right, that something was missing and then they decided to come and the world became perfect. We want our children to feel like being themselves is the most important job for them in the world. That we don’t want them to blend in or sacrifice Who They Really Are for anything or anyone. How we see them sets this up within their foundational perspectives of themselves. If we focus on their successes, their joys and their experiments, rather than their mistakes, shortfalls and weaknesses, then they will believe that they are capable of great things rather than being shadowed by self doubt and insecurities.

We express ourselves through our opinions and preferences, therefore asking our children what they like and what they think creates a space where they don’t need to agree with us and share the same opinion. When their own opinion is validated they are reminded that it is important to be true to themselves.

One way I love to strengthen this perspective is to simply ask two questions daily. “When didn’t you feel like yourself today?” and “When did you feel like yourself today?” When this is asked after school or after a busy day, a child is given time to reflect on how they felt and how they want to feel, as well as ponder on what it feels like to be Truly themselves.  Now my children are older they know that, whenever they are trying to make a decision, I’ll always ask them what feels most like themselves.

               Silence- Offering our children the grounding space of silence creates a safe place for them to sense who they are. We live in a loud world and we might as well bring that to our children’s attention. Computers, Television, even normal conversation has a fast paced loud energy that children are sensitive to. They react in one of two ways, shutting down completely or spinning out of control. When we bring their awareness to silence, they see the contrast, and in that contrast it becomes a tool for happier living. This can be done at bedtime, with deep breathing, showing them how to breathe all the way to their navel. It can be done in playing games of how quiet can they be or how slow can we talk and awareness can also be drawn to silence in contrasting experiences, such as watching a fast, loud program and then saying you want to watch a slower show after in order to feel the difference, or saying that you’ve had a fast day and you need some quiet, or incorporating the phrase “Having a loud head” in every day conversation and showing how you deal with it.
Meditation is the obvious choice for finding silence, but this can come in a lot of forms. Sitting outside in nature, going for a walk, a five count breathing session, or writing subconscious pages, even coloring can be a statement of silence, which you can share with your child or at least offer them as an example of how silence creates the space for yourself to thrive.

      Magic.- We need to believe in magic, all of us. We need to trust in unseen forces and the “impossible.” I don’t mean play Santa Claus and be the Easter bunny, I mean go for walks and notice the incredible miracles that happen daily around us. From flowers blooming, to snow falling, teach your children that this is magic. Real Magic. Seeds lie dormant waiting for spring, our hearts pump blood without thought, babies are born, life is full of infinite possibilities. When we offer seeing life as magical we are reminded that we don’t have to fit into any category and life is unlimited. Our children know this when they first arrive and it is so tempting to teach it out of them, but when we allow this view to flourish, they embrace life with intention and openness. One way to encourage their belief in magic is to not always have the answers. When they ask a question about how the world works, ask for their opinion first, how do they thing the world was made? Then give your opinion, but remind them that life is magical. For it is.

There is a wonderful sense of wellbeing when we remember that other forces, good forces, are at work keeping balance.

No matter what, when our children know that they live in a home based in love and not fear, then they will have a spiritual foundation which allows them to flourish. As Spirit, we are all here to remember how to trust in wellbeing and flow with life and love, and the better we trust in that ourselves, the better example we are for our children.

These tools are also the foundation for Christina's course, Spiritual Kids; building foundations for a spiritually aware family. The course uses crafts, activities, exercises, stories as well as video and Mp3 to provide you with a spiritual toolbox, in order to create a proactive, interactive spiritual experience with our children, helping them build strong self esteem and sense of Who They Are within a confusing world.

A Child Isn't a Joke

The situation would be frowned upon if it was about race or gender, but if it’s about children, society has no problem cracking a joke.

A seemingly harmless Facebook status about how hard it is to concentrate on work when surrounded by cute kids opens a gateway for generalized comments and jokes, such as “they’ll be doing something disgusting soon enough” or “Imagine them 10 years down the road stealing your car.” Somehow, even just the two word response “beat them” is considered funny. 

What? When did it become okay to make that sort of comment? 

Why is an age slur different than a race one and when are we as a society going to start treating our children as respected citizens?

2015 started off with many heated debates regarding free speech and what it meant. With the horrifying tragedies in Paris, some still questioned whether ridicule and criticism regarding any group was a fair representation of free speech. I have a problem with the statement “people should learn how to take a joke” especially since we are consistently battling bullying for our children in the schools. It feels like a mixed message.

We tell our children not to hurt others and to respect differences. We tell them to help others smaller than themselves, to see people as individuals and not stereotype groups. We encourage them to accept that others have different beliefs and cultures, but then, in grown up society, we can mock, sneer and jeer at whomever and whatever as long as it has a certain quality of wit. 

When I commented on the Facebook comment thread, simply saying that my kids were too incredible to be distracted from, I was told that “everyone loves their kids, but they like to laugh too.” I was being a killjoy. Because I was suggesting that children, individual human beings, who are at the beginning of learning about life, who are often struggling to adapt to adult surroundings and being expected to know how to be without being taught in simple steps, CHILDREN shouldn’t be laughed at, labelled as simply cute and stereotyped as people headed for trouble.

Is it social media that has us so cut off from basic consideration for others, both individually and as groups? Are we so desperately in search of that funny status that we’ll make fun of our loved ones or anyone standing too close?

I don’t even understand how it comes about. Why are children so often, generalized negatively when we were all young once? It’s not like different cultures where unless you live and breathe them it’s difficult to fully feel what they are. I remember being a child and my attempts at learning as I went along. Generalizing how I was going to behave based on my age often did me harm. In fact it left me isolated and confused. You remember, don’t you, that feeling of walking into a store and the staff watching you intently, and convinced you were going to sneak something into a pocket, all the while knowing it was usually the least suspecting that would shoplift.

In my mind any ridiculing of any stereotyped version of a group does one thing: it perpetuates more of that perspective. The power of words is that they create, they empower their message. The more we put focus on the mess children can create in their explorations, rather than on the excitement of their explorations themselves, the more it’s the mess we see. The more we comment on our children’s downfalls, even generalized downfalls which other people have made a joke of, the more we look to our children to back it up and the more we have a distorted view of who they are. It is like a projector goes up between us and them, and the image we watch of them is simply an image, no longer capable of personal connection.

My children and I laugh all the time. We joke about and have been known to raise passing people’s eyebrows with our giggles and goofy behaviour. However, they are being raised with the care not to make fun of things. If you make fun of something beautiful, even a fairytale, you will never see it the same way again. If you mock something then be prepared for your perspective to change forever. We’ve all occasionally watched a skit on a show like Saturday Night Live and repeat it in our minds with a laugh whenever we hear about the issue or person again. It’s the comic’s greatest legacy and responsibility to shift perspective to the humorous side. Do we want to change perspective of how we see our children?

We’re an ever evolving and developing human race. We are suppose to be forever moving forward, but we have to ask ourselves, can’t we learn that bullying is bullying, no matter the age or the cause, and that no victim should have to be told to “take a joke”. Verbal abuse is often in the form of ridicule and it is abuse, whether directed at one person or at a group, and generalization of children, like any group of people, simply creates walls against seeing people as individuals.

Our children, just like ourselves, are individuals. They sometimes make messes, make mistakes and occasionally act ridiculously cute, just like us. It’s all the process of this thing called life and all of us often need a helping hand of support not to be the butt of a Facebook joke.