Bridie Clark

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Screen Free Summer, Day 41

Our screen free summer is now well underway, and I’m just finding time to write about it. And I’m writing quickly. Summer is busy! Day 41: It hasn’t been airtight screen free, but I’m happy to say it’s been pretty close! We launched Screen Free Summer right as we left for an awesome trip to Grand Canyon and Zion with family friends. That week away, nobody seemed fazed by not having screens.*

  • To recap, 14 year old girl DOES still have a phone this summer, but like mine, it’s been stripped down to a real “toolkit” vibe. Music, Audible, Calendar, Netflix, text, calls. No internet. No Snapchat, which she’d previously been using.
  • 13 year old boy still has his Apple watch. He’s able to play music into headphones and text/ call.
  • Kids watching TV like it’s 1987. A lot. A LOT OF TV. I might write a post later about the reasons I’m fine with this. But just to be clear, we have absolutely replaced some of our vegging with iPads/ iPhone with vegging in front of TV.

Anyway, okay, week one — no problem. Kids were surrounded by other kids, having fun, and we were on the move seeing beautiful places. I was basically giving myself a lot of back pats. It was our first day BACK from the trip, Day 8, that hit us hard. Day 9 and Day 10 also NOT awesome. The people were angry. Tired, back at home, kids naturally wanted to fall back into the habits of zoning out on their devices. Fought hard to get through those few days back on the ground. These days required some extra elbow grease as a parent. I got through it by inviting a lot of friends over, which I realize for various reasons not everybody can easily do. But that’s what worked here — extra in person time with friends. Some activities, too. Television and movies. Some extra family time. A trip to our local book store, time in the aisles at Target. Some shopping with the 14 year old. Nutshell, unspoken bribery. Which is also not something every single person or family can do. Just reporting the facts. We got through it! The kids seemed to accept that the plan was firm and I wasn’t going to cave. (Apparently, this is what happens when the plan remains firm and I don’t cave. Who knew?) Also, to be clear, we haven’t been totally airtight. 14 year old girl went to tennis camp; we reactivated her SnapChat the last day so she could stay connected with friends she met there.
Likewise, she went back on the app for her close friend’s birthday, to show her friend some love there.
Fine.
This on-off switch was really easy to do using Qustodio. 11 year old girl felt called to document the before and after of getting braces and text photos to her friends. Fine. And I’ve added Chrome back onto my phone a few times when I really NEEDED to check something and couldn’t make it to computer at home. Has anything changed as the result of going off screens? Inconclusive re: our 14 year old. I honestly don’t know if this is doing anything in her life. But she’s not complaining, which I find interesting. She’s lost access to Snapchat and anything online, and I haven’t heard a thing about it. She seems to be fine just texting, and she’s spending a good amount of time in person with friends. Overall, I’d say it hasn’t seemed like a big deal for her. The biggest change has been for our 13 year old son. Minecraft and YouTube videos about Minecraft REALLY do it for this guy, to the point where no other plan could compete. Very little came close to the pleasure he got from holing up in his room and zoning out on this stuff. So this change for him was pretty major. His screen time was HIGH. It has been been, without question, the BEST THING EVER to make a firm decision to take him off screens for summer. My husband and I have looked at each other several times and said, “We have him back.” He’s so much more engaged with the family. He’s doing more, connecting more, socializing more. Making more mistakes. He’s daydreaming. The craziest thing is, I think he may be relieved. A little relieved. He would 100 percent take the iPad back tomorrow. But I see relief mixed in as well. Anyway, from where we stand on Day 41, this is all feeling like a YES to me. Reach out to me if you want moral support trying it yourself. I’m happy to chat. This felt like a lot to take on, but now it feels pretty natural.

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I dumbed down my Smartphone.

For many years, I’ve been living with this nagging discomfort about our family’s screen use.  Although we were in the slow lane, and limited use and access, I STILL saw how screens snuck in… made camp… and quickly became what my kids jonesed for most.  (Especially YouTube videos.)

It felt kind of bad. Not awful, but kind of bad.

  • Screens distracted us from the present moment.
  • They made other activities seem less exciting or interesting. (Very little competes with the dopamine-producing effects of video games, YouTube videos, texting, the limitless 24/7 online shopping mall, and social media.)
  • We became less comfortable with boredom/ down time and started craving constant stimulation.

And that was before I started paying much attention to the research on what chasing videos on YouTube does to one’s attention span, or how social media affects adolescent mental health.

Even without the articles, the data, the research — we just know, right?  As parents we get that kind of bad feeling when we hand over the screens to our little backseat passengers, knowing that they’ll be quiet and entertained BUT will miss everything going by them on the drive.

Or when we see our 14 year old daughters taking selfies for SnapChat, sucking in their cheeks.

Or when our 12 year old sons spend hours of a sunny afternoon holed up in their rooms, “doing their homework” (interspersed with YouTube videos and Minecraft.)

It’s easier in the short run to give kids screens.  But we know — we know! — that it’s not better in the long run.  

Cognitive dissonance is a term used to describe the mental discomfort that comes when our actions and decisions don’t match our beliefs and values.

As parents, our cognitive dissonance around our kids’ use of screens is the hidden reason why so many of us feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

Personally I have lived with this dissonance for too long.  I am tired of monitoring (also, I’m lousy at it).  I am tired of walking quietly into my kid’s room to police that he hasn’t found a back way into YouTube (rather than, I don’t know, chatting about his day.)  It squeezes my heart when I see my girls — any girls — take selfies.  It does.  It feels bad.  It feels weird.  Selfies are so weird! And you do not need a photo of the sunset. Nobody does. Just look at the sunset.

Most of all, I am scared that these behaviors have been so normalized for my children’s generation, they’ll never know what an offline life feels like.

This stuff wakes me up at 2 am.   But the good news is that I am finally, finally ready to take action.

Step one of this journey: Quitting my Smartphone. Changing my own behavior, changing what I’m modeling.

(There’s a reason you need to be sober for at least a year before you can be a sponsor in AA).

I’d already taken baby steps. I’d removed notifications. I’d added screen limits.

Last month, I ripped off the band aid. No internet on my phone – so no social media, no popping onto Amazon.

I also can’t check my emails.  That was a worry:  I work full time and often duck out to pick up kids or run an errand, and my phone allowed me constant access to my email. I also get a lot from the kids’ school. My habit was to check my work and personal email quite often when away from my desk.

Here’s the thing, though.  I am a book editor.  I work on very long term projects in deep collaboration with a small team of people, all of whom have my phone number and would call me if there was some sort of emergency during those times away from my desk. (There are rarely book emergencies.)

I also happen to work for the most supportive, freethinking publisher (who also happens to be a Mom of 4 and doesn’t seem to care about how I get my job done, as long as I do.)

If the school, or a loved one, or the plumber needs to reach me in real time, they call.

My point:  We can get lulled into thinking we need to be constantly accessible, constantly able to check email, that type of thing. This past month I’ve learned: I DIDN’T NEED EMAIL ON MY PHONE. 

In case you’re interested, here’s what I can still do with my phone:

  • Call
  • Text
  • Use my calendar
  • Play music
  • Play books on Audible
  • Venmo/ access banking app
  • Check traffic on Waze
  • Track mileage on runs
  • Take photos
  • Access house stuff – like Nest
  • Brainstorm in Notes

It’s been awesome. All the tools, none of the temptation.

It’s given me oxygen for the far steeper climb ahead: A screen free summer for my kids.

I’m scared.  I’m scared!  Taking a smartphone from the hands of a 14 year old girl feels downright dangerous.  Even my 10 year old is going to put up a fight about not being able to text her buddies this summer.

What the heck will they do all summer?  We have twelve weeks off!  That is a lot of time!  Is it going to be miserable?  Am I really brave enough to fly cross country alone with four kids – and road trip from there – without my husband and WITHOUT SCREENS?  And after that, I’m working!  I’m not one of these zen Homeschool Moms you see on Instagram who delights in engaging her kids in nature-based learning!  I am just a normal Mom who flips her lid 3.5 times a week AS IT IS.  Will this move create a constant parade of children knocking on my office door and complaining that they’re bored?  Is this going to feel like a brutal multi-person detox… or a mutiny?  Will they be able to find friends to hang out with?  What is this going to look like?

You get the idea.  

Honestly, it’s not going to be easy, but it beats waking up in the middle of the night – again – feeling crummy because I know better, but I’m not doing better, by my crew.

More to come on how this goes.  Wish me luck. 

When I start to wobble, I’m reminding myself: Childhood is fast and precious.  The time is now.

(STILL SCARED.)

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The easiest way to meal plan.

A few months ago, the whole food thing was taking up a discouraging amount of mental space: figuring out what we’d have for dinner (and lunch, and breakfast), buying groceries, cooking. I love food, I live for dinner, but it felt like reinventing the wheel each week.

I thought about how I could get this necessary, and sometimes even enjoyable, job done with as little ongoing thought as possible. Here’s what has been working:

MAKE A TOP TEN LIST OF MEALS.

Here’s our current list:

This salmon with tomatoes and feta (via my friend Ashley, like many of our favorites).

This chicken with eggplant or other roasted veggies.

This lentil soup, which is my lunch most days.

This cauliflower fried rice (add extra veggies to recipe).

This roast chicken with broccoli.

Home-made pizzas with roasted veggies and a salad.

Ranch pork chops, fingerling potatoes, and brussel sprouts (with homemade apple sauce if I have time, and sauerkraut). As simple as sprinkling dry ranch powder on top of a cookie sheet.

Chicken noodle soup with rotisserie chicken, lots of carrots and celery, and egg noodles.

Protein spaghetti with this vegetable bolognese sauce and meatballs (frozen). Sauce freezes well.

This slow cooker coke roast (scroll down on the linked page to see recipe).

3 RECURRING MEALS + 2 MEALS OUT/ FREEZER = ONLY 2 NIGHTS TO PLAN EACH WEEK.

Each weekend, I write the meal plan for the week. Since we have 3 of these meals weekly (always the salmon, the lentil soup, and the sumac chicken), and we eat out/ grab take out/ have freezer food 2 times a week, I just slot in 2 extra meals from the list of 10.

For more selective eaters, I try to keep hard-boiled eggs and some easy to grab veggies in the fridge. A nutritionist friend once told me that the default option should be healthy, and not too yummy or tempting. (She thought she was stating the obvious, but I’d been making peanut butter and jellies almost nightly.)

KEEP A PERPETUAL GROCERY LIST.

I’ve included the stuff we need to have (milk, eggs, condiments, pantry stuff, etc), as well as the ingredients for the 3 recurring weekly meals, and the freezer meals that should always be kept in stock. This takes some thinking out of grocery shopping. I just add in what’s needed for the extra 2 dinners.

This is all probably very obvious to some, but for me, it has felt like cracking a code. I also love that we’ve cut way down on food waste.

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Weekly joys, Vol. 1.

The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries. Adore this alternate ending to Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.

I’m spending more time waiting in school pick up lines and these Wondrium courses make me feel like I’m getting something out of it (besides, obviously, my kids.) For $10 a month, you can listen to the best college or graduate courses taught by the most engaging professors. Art, history, science… the hard thing is choosing which class to take next. I’ve been loving the philosophy classes. They’re all really good.

Apples Never Fall, just out by Liane Moriarty. She’s the maestro of well-crafted and engaging storytelling and this book was really fun.

I’d like this to be true!

A simple hack to improve our morning flow: Leave kids’ socks in a bin in the mudroom. No more running back upstairs.

This, spread over this, for breakfast.

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A few good things.

Love this Instagram quote from @treehuggerdotcom

My friend Aliza Fogelson published this dreamy novel, a delight to read.

This recipe has hit our dinner table weekly since March, and nobody seems sick of it yet.

What a brilliant idea: The Masters at Work book series. It was launched fairly recently by S & S publisher Jonathan Karp to offer an entertaining but super informative look into how various people became great in their chosen field. So far I’ve read Becoming a Venture Capitalist, Becoming an Architect, and Becoming a Curator. There are currently 27 careers to read about (including becoming a hair stylist, real estate agent, and life coach) and the series seems to be growing fast. Each of the books I read was well-written and researched by a veteran journalist. Great gift for a college student or someone who has read Studs Turkel’s Working many times.

My friend Lauren Wilson is offering a lovely Yoga Nidra class on Tuesday nights at 7 pm over Zoom. It’s so relaxing and she is the perfect guide. It’s also a great practice to try with kids. Conks them out before bedtime! Contact laurenwilsonpractice@gmail.com if you’re interested.

Glop some of this magical elixir on before bed (glop is really the only verb that describes the action) and top with socks you don’t care about. New feet by dawn!

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Favorite books, winter.

Here are some of the books I loved reading since January, reviewed as succinctly as possible!

Tears-off-the-chin emotional catharsis. Loved it.

Dystopian classic. If you’re new to it, save your virginity for the book and then you can watch the HBO series.

An essential read about using tech in a disciplined way that supports the life you want. Now reading Newport’s Deep Work.

Entertaining story with thought-provoking perspective on racial tension.

Charming, nerdy, sweet. Would be nice to read in Quarantine (I read it earlier).

I made my way through this book slowly, trying so hard not to miss anything. I’ll probably have to — and want to — read it again.

I love Ann Patchett. I am honestly grateful that she is out there writing.

The simplest ideas are the most powerful right now.

Perfect during early days of quarantine when I wanted something light.

A quiet, sad, beautifully written novel about one man’s life in academia.

As a naturally disorganized person, I crave clear, concrete systems. Morgenstern breaks down what a parent’s job description actually is, and then gives practical advice for fulfilling it.

Because Zoom. And also because Ephron. One of those writers who feels like a friend.

A page-turner as well as an eye-opener. (It downright scared me when her tour was cancelled. I don’t like to see books banned, aborted, censored, or bullied. I bought and donated 3 copies as a small act of civic responsibility.)

I hope this works. Reading now. 4 hours is about what I’ve got with four kids home 24/7!

Every time I stretch, I wonder why it is that I usually forget to do something that feels so good. That’s what reading Sedaris is like for me.

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Mom Is Calm.

These are hard days. We’re living in a state of collective anxiety. We’re dealing with completely changed routines. We’re worried about people, illness, money. We don’t know how long this will last.

I knew I’d need a solid game plan to keep depression and anxiety at bay. Here are the strategies that are helping me keep my equilibrium:

  • Elizabeth Gilbert’s six words of advice: “Make your bed and get dressed.” Have kids do the same. I find real clothes (who remembers buttons?) really help.
  • Tactical: One water bottle per kid. Used at every single meal, during the school day, and overnight. Washed once a day.
  • Noise-cancelling headphones. I wear them when I clean. It’s turning cleaning into a delightful oasis of silence. My kids know that when I’m wearing headphones, it means that I’m not available except in an emergency. I explained to them that I’m a person who needs some quiet time each and every day. Most of us do.
  • Tactical: I’m remembering Ellyn Satter’s perfect advice about feeding children. Grown ups control the when, where and what. Kids control the whether and how much. If someone shoves the veggies to the side and eats just buttery pasta, I am letting that go. That’s hard for me, especially now, but I’m doing it. I control the when. Our kitchen is open five times daily (which is a lot). If it is not one of those times, the kitchen is closed. Grown ups too. I’m accepting my own need for order.
  • Tactical: Snacks can only be eaten outside. More time outside is a good thing, so I’m linking it to something they want (Goldfish).
  • Synchronized screen time. Since school in now online, I don’t want the kids on their screens all day. I also hate to police screen time. Our solution right now: They’re all able to use screens for the same hour, every day. Otherwise screens are in a bin. Bonus: It gives me a dedicated hour to get work done or take my run. My kids are having their daily hour as I write this.
  • I’m asking for affirmation. When I felt myself getting winded on the very first hill of this marathon, I reached out to my adult family members and some close friends asking them to tell me what a good job I was doing… and to keep the praise coming. Embarrassing to admit, but I know myself. I love gold stars. Gold stars can get me up many a hill. We all need cheerleaders right now. Our friends and loved ones need a shout-out for how bravely they’re facing loneliness, long days, hardship, and anxiety. Our kids do too! Tell your people all the ways you’re seeing them shine.
  • I’ve been running every single day since August, and I swear by it. It washes my brain with feel-good chemicals. After learning that 79 year old Dr. Fauci has cut his daily run down to 3.5 miles, so he could focus on, you know, saving the world, I’ve decided to meet him there. 3.5 miles daily. I tell my family I’m going out to do a Fauci. Sometimes I take a kid or two with me on bikes. Nothing beats a good sweat.
  • I made myself two killer playlists. One I listen to when running. One I listen to when I need to chill. Music = medicine.
  • I’m not drinking, and I’m limiting myself to one delicious dessert a day. (Okay, trying to limit myself.)
  • I told the kids that Adam Rohdie (the head of our school) says that they have to be in nature every single day. He is an authority figure they admire and this has cut down on grumbling about daily hikes, which keep us all sane. (He didn’t actually say this, but I believe he’d be on board.)
  • I’m making as few decisions as possible each day. I’m wearing the same three outfits. I’m eating the same breakfast. I’m even committing to doing the same activities that I know relax me at the end of a long day. I need my brain to be as rested as possible.

All this, and I still have DAILY moments of overwhelm. Man! This is so real! It’s hard! And it keeps on coming! I was having one of these moments as I sat down to write this post.

Whenever those moments strike, I try to go back to my list and look for ways to calm myself down a little. I try to let go of the mindset that I am either “doing well” or “failing” — one or the other. I expect wobbles. I try to rebound. And I give myself credit for just doing my best.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope you do the same. You’re doing a good job.