Have you ever wondered what it would be like to switch roles with your family members? Children become the parents/guardians or the other way around? What is mom like when you’re trying to communicate with her but she is on a screen device? What if the child didn’t complete tasks after being asked multiple times by an adult because they were glued to their technology? This activity is an interactive way to see what is like to be in the shoes of someone else.

Tell a story about one or more characters who find a way to spend less time using their screen device. How do they unplug? Is there anything (or anyone) that helps them put away their smartphone or turn off their laptop? A hero perhaps? What does the character do instead?

In this activity, you’ll become a scientist of sorts and gather information about how you spend time using screen devices in your house. For families that want to spend less time on their phones, this can be an important first step. You might have a feeling about how you use your devices, but if you wrote a little about your screen time each day, what might you learn? Try this for several days and find out.

In this activity, you and your family will make a quick list of the technologies you use at home and how much time you spend using them. Next, as a group, you’ll come up with new and creative ways to spend less time on your devices and more time connecting with one another, for example, or exercising, pursuing your hobbies, cooking, or playing games together.

This is no ordinary game of charades. In this activity, you’ll start by thinking about things you do with a screen device, like watching videos on a laptop or listening to music on your smartphone, and things you do without a screen device, like riding a bike or watering your garden. How is the classic game of charades different when you act out screen time activities? Begin by choosing the appropriate grade level for the […]