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A few years ago, Christmas became too much for me and my family. The whole affair had grown too big to enjoy, and, at its core, it was actually a celebration of waste and excessive consumerism. So, I stepped back and tried a new approach, one that you may need this year to counter the impact of the predicted supply shortages. Here are a few low key ways my once typical family now handles decorations, gift giving and celebrating.

Make or Commission Decorations and Gifts

If you are only six degrees from Kevin Bacon, then even fewer degrees separate you from someone who can sew or knit you a stocking. I am, in fact, one of such people, and there are many of us. We come in all forms, from pear shaped grandmas eking by on Social Security, to harried moms at home who could use some cash to see them through the holidays.

If you can’t shop, you’ll have time to enjoy many easy to make handmade crafts to adorn your windows and trees. With these projects, it’s not just the decoration, but the experience of making with friends and family, that cultivate the holiday spirit. Many things can be strung on thread, yarn or twine to make decorative garlands; pasta, popcorn, Cheerios and berries. Folded paper triangles can be cut into snowflakes. Try as you might, no 2 can be alike.

This year, I learned how to craft hand bound blank books, made from cereal and cracker boxes and up cycled fabric and paper. My go to hand crafted gift hits include soup in a jar, lip gloss, and candles. Jars really sparkle when their labels are removed, and colorful layers of dried beans and spices are alway alluring. Lip gloss and candles can be made in bulk in one evening at a fraction of the cost new, and poured into creative containers like tiny jam jars. And never underestimate the simple joy of receiving handmade cookies in the mail.

Not everyone enjoys crafting, but most of us can make something, whether we believe in ourselves or not. Yee of little faith can help your local economy by commissioning a maker or attending a holiday craft fair. Sure, you might have to pay someone a living wage, but you can rest assured knowing you’re not supporting deplorable working conditions. It’s hard to feel Christmas cheer when you read about the cruel conditions the people who make your Christmas cheer work in, for maybe $2 a day.

Visit thrift stores and garage sales

This is the approach that makes me feel connected to something like fate or Santa Claus. I find nearly everything I want for crosses path eventually if I just wait and keep an open mind.

My son asked for a globe earlier this year. I mentally filed the request away as I wondered where in our humble home we could spare the surface space to keep one. A few weeks later, I found a globe sewing project at the thrift store. Simply cut, sew and stuff. Even if I hand stitch, I’ll be done in time for Christmas. And, no surface area necessary.

The following week a bag of stuffing appeared in my local Buy Nothing Group. There were no other askers, so I piped up. There is much joy to be found in keeping a metaphorical ear to the ground and seeing the serendipitous gifts the universe brings your way. My gift may take more time to make, but, I won’t have to worry if it’s in stock or if there will be postal delays.

Seek it out (locally) online

Scroll local listings on Facebook Marketplace and utilize the Craigslist search bar. There’s a place to input a maximum distance from your zip code if you’re provincial like I am. You’ll be amazed at what you can find in a 5 mile bubble from your home.

Need something that children ultimately outgrow or grow tired of? Let your local online mom group know what you’re looking for. Most of us moms will jump at the opportunity to declutter for some spending holiday cash.

Watch your Buy Nothing Project group or your local Freecycle group feeds for a while. A lot of people get into the spirit of giving around Christmastime. And, if you can’t find it local, check eBay, Etsy and Poshmark- but do it before shipping delays strike!

What can you do Instead of Buying Presents?

It turns out, the best holiday memories are those spent as a family, still in pajamas, wearing fuzzy socks, baking and crafting. These cozy moments together doing festive things are what make the holidays merry and bright. As much attention is given to shopping, it’s only a fraction of the holiday experience, and it’s surprisingly lower on the totem pole than you think, even in the eyes of children. Other things that are up there: decorating a gingerbread house (even if it’s built out of graham crackers and old Halloween candy), trimming a tree, piling in the car (with cocoa) to look at Christmas lights, playing Christmas records, baking cookies, and just taking the time to be together. Don’t let shopping and materialism spoil your Christmas. Most of the stuff just becomes clutter anyway.

Diana is an artist and design who writes about living simply. Follow me for more insight into living simply. Follow me on Instagram to get to know me better.

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I believe the “cold turkey” approach expects a changed behavior without allowing for development of new coping and soothing behaviors. When I was a teenager, I was struck by a friend’s story of when mom took his sibling’s bottles away. Mom set the bottles on the curb when the garbage truck came. The little girl chased the garbage truck down the street, crying. I didn’t want to create the kind of craving a sudden hole leaves, so I went about transitioning away from screens carefully.

Baby Steps

First, I began to store the tablet in an out of the way spot. I had started using the tablet for my illustration work, so I left the tablet in the garage where I work. The step of looking for it provided a natural barrier. I also set screen time limits on the device. After an hour of app use, it shuts down. I also blocked use of the internet entirely after my child stumbled upon something horrible, even though the child settings enabled. I do not recommend unsupervised net surfing.

I also made movies more accessible. I went to the library and regularly set new movies on the coffee table. Switching the focus to movies worked as a gentle step away from games. TV doesn’t have the same hold that games do, and the screen related behaviors are less pronounced. I suspect television is less dopamine stimulating than games are. This Washington Post article quotes “One 1998 study showed that video games raise the level of dopamine in the brain by about 100 percent…” In the decades since, companies have really honed the addictive power of tech. In fact, there are tech companies that exist just to study how to make device elicit the most response from our neurobiology. How can kids stand a chance?

Set Limits

I set clear limits around screens at our house and I made some reasonable requests at Grandpa’s. The trick is to set limits that don’t require you as a parent to become a watchdog or a broken record.

I asked Grandpa to only allow YouTube when he could watch with my son, and to report to me the names of the games he downloaded. This would limit the amount of time spent on YouTube, and ensure he wasn’t watching “professional gamers” play violent or creepy games. Now that I know what games are played, I can look them up and nix anything that is not child appropriate, which is actually about half of them!

At home, homework and chores have to be done before turning on any screens. My kid likes to outsmart us, so he quickly realized he could ignore the chores and just play and read instead. He showed us he didn’t need chores or games. Little did he know, the chores were not the most important thing to us. After a few months of voracious reading, I eventually set a few new rewards to encourage chore completion; dessert and a 15 minutes later bedtime.

I’ve observed this idea in our culture that boredom is something we need to save children from. I personally believe boredom to be the precipice of self discovery. At home, parents can make sure there are books, all kinds of creative materials, and a steady stream of exposure to new potential interests, either through the library, classes, or a parent’s own pursuits. Things like kits, games, arts, crafts, books, instruments, gardening and experimentation need to be available, along with enough downtime that a child will be bored enough to try them.

Blue light from phone, tablet, computer and television screens interfere with natural melatonin production that makes us sleepy at bedtime. It was only logical to set a no screens after dinnertime rule. We do a family movie night sometimes, which makes breaking this rule a fun occasion. It makes what we watch special, and the time is spent together. Also, the television is not right in our face, so I’d argue, the blue light exposure is minimal compared to a tablet placed 6 inches away from the eyes.

How to Set New Rules

It’s important to make new rules and limits known at a calm time well before they will be enforced. This way, when you enforce them, they are already expected, and meltdowns are reduced. I always like to explain the reason behind the new rule, and then ask my child what he will do instead. This way, when the time comes, not only is he expecting it; he has a plan for how he is going to handle the disappointment. Enforcing rules can be no fun sometimes, but it breeds a kind of trust that makes kids feel safe and taken care of. And as long as a child knows your boundaries are flexible, he will keep testing you.

Introduce Alternatives

We need alternatives to help us past our less desirous behaviors. Around the time I began scaling back the screens, my son asked to take piano lessons. I signed him up for piano and ju-jitsu. Tablets were naturally forgotten on these days, and piano playing provided a new way to pass the time. It wasn’t long after that we adopted our pet rats, and they provided an opportunity for real interactive joy in his day.

I began frequenting our local free libraries and keeping a small stack of “reward books” to hand my son for positive reinforcement of good behaviors. When he was compliant during all of his piano lesson, I’d hand him a book with a smile, “You stayed engaged and focused the whole lesson”- and wander off.

Strewing is something I picked up during our pandemic year of unschooling. Unschoolers use strewing to help their children discover new interests without pressure. Leave things for your child to discover in a noticeable spot, like the living room coffee table. What to strew? My local library offers science kits as well as book bundles on a variety of topics. I also keep an eye out on my local buy nothing group for kits and puzzles which we use for a while, and then re gift. Some of the most unexpected strews awaken interest. A book of human anatomy, with transparent pages of human body systems and a torn cover, is now a prized possession. A zany book of facts about the US awakened an interest in US Presidents and geography, which spread to an interest in the wider world- all while my son was just eight years old.

The Chore System

Chores should be age appropriate and challenging enough that you feel screen time has been earned. The chore system also helps kids work on developing the executive function tasks that screens may interfere with, like remembering to do things, and working out the steps necessary to complete a task. Chores have provided an opportunity for us to work on developing these skills in my son, who can spend all afternoon with his nose in a book. The trick is to teach kids to remember without reminders. As long as they can count on you for a reminder, they will logically see no reason to remember on their own. Some kids will be motivated by the screen time reward. Some will naturally self motivate eventually. In my house, we are working on visuals to help our child remember to do the things he needs.

What Does “Clean Your Room” Mean?

A lot of people begin telling their kids, as young as 3, to “clean your room”. But many kids don’t have perspective on the steps and tasks that are required to create a passable impression of clean. At age 5, my son was old enough to understand a list of tasks that he could complete to achieve a clean room. He liked this list and still keeps it on his bulletin board, years later.

1. animals in bin
2. Legos in lego box
3. clothes in hamper
4. games in closet
5. trash in trashcan
6. books on shelf

And so began clean your room Wednesdays, later joined by clean the rodent cage Mondays, and do your laundry Tuesdays. These chores are pretty complex, so we only have these 3 big chores for now. There are also 2 “daily chores” that have to be completed every day: practice piano and dump the rat litter box.

When my son is caught up on all of his chores, he is free to watch television or play games. As he doesn’t usually complete his chores before dinner, or even every day, he has grown unused to using screen regularly. Cured of the gaming habit he is almost always found reading, baking, playing with his toys or digging a hole in the yard– even when his chores are finished early.

The gentle removal of device cues, and the introduction of alternatives, chores, and limits have created a calm home life free from the battle over screen time. There is no more countdown until the TV or tablet is turned off, no more monologues about playing a video game, and no more of that screen induced agitation. We don’t have control over the availability of games at Grandpa’s house, but now that the gaming habit has been broken at home, our child has stopped racing to Grandpa’s computer the moment he opens the door. Screentime’s hold has been broken. I have my son back and he has his childhood.

Quick Screen Addiction Action Plan

Find an out of the way place to store screens

Make sure the tv isn’t the only thing to interact with in a room (add crayons and paper or books to the coffee table for some competition)

Make a list of hard limits to screen times (never in the car, after homework is done, etc.)

Long Term Screen Addiction Cure

Develop and support daily chores and one complex chore or activity for most day.

Assess your own screen use. Make sure you’re engaging with real life, too.

Discuss your personal interaction with screens and how it has negative impacts on your life.

Find new materials to “strew” in your home every weeks through library visits, mom group exchanges, or by perusing your own home for recipes, crafts and games.

The post How I Helped My Child Stop Craving Screens appeared first on Diana Kohne.

I sometimes wonder if the last truly time saving modern convenience was the washing machine. Its arrival in the 1920s, along with other new technologies like the vacuum cleaner and the refrigerator brought hours of leisure time to the average US citizen. The Harris Poll began tracking our leisure time in 1973, measuring on average, 26 hours per week. That number dropped to a mere 16 hours per week in 2007. (I have been unable to find more recent reports, and can only assume that Harris no longer has the time for such polls.) Modern technology retains the reputation for convenience, all the while it insidiously eats minutes, hours, days, and eventually, years of our lives. Here are some simple steps to reclaim your time.

Don’t use TV streaming (use the free alternative)

The fewer streaming services you have, the simpler your life will feel. Viewers spend between 28–41 minutes per day just looking for something to watch. This adds up to 474 days over your life time — more than a year of your life spent squinting in indecision.

When I quit Amazon Prime, I got in the habit of checking out movies at the library. With more distance between selecting my videos and the time I watch them, I don’t feel pressured to find the perfect thing. I can drop a dozen titles into my canvas tote in only a few minutes. When evening TV watching time rolls around it’s just not possible to lose half an hour to indecision when there are only 12 titles to choose from.

Set healthy boundaries with your phone

My clients and friends don’t see me in person until I have completed my morning self care. I apply the same expectation to my smart phone and other devices. I don’t visit with them until I am fed, dressed, had my tea, combed my hair and brushed my teeth. Now my mornings are calmer and simpler. I have clarity. I am able to engage with my working memory about my plans and ideas because my short term memory hasn’t been obliterated by items from my social media feeds.

I realize that I have handed several years of my life over to my phone. The average American spends nearly 5 and a half hours a day on their phone. The number is grows even higher for millennials and teens. It is predicted we will spend at least 9 years of our lives on our phones.

Set a weekly phone call with friends instead of texting constantly. The results are more rewarding.

I told my friend I used to text with constantly that I wanted to better connect by actually talking to her. She texted back, “I love that!” Now, we rarely text and save our shares for our Monday “coke date.” (We are from Texas, where all sodas are called “cokes.”) In terms of feeling heard and connected, calling creates memorable connections. It’s also scientifically proven to be more emotionally fulfilling.

According to a study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin in 2020, “Phone calls create stronger bonds than text based communication.”

People send text messages when a phone call is the way to get the feelings of connectedness we crave. The problem is, you don’t recall the funny thing they texted. You don’t feel emotionally seen. Or, if you did, you just don’t remember the moment. The fact is, texting is emotionally unfulfilling. Interestingly, the UT Austin study found that calling did not, in fact, take more time than composing an email.

Connection is one of the tenants of living a simple life. When we feel connected, life feels easier. When we aren’t constantly interrupted by texts, we actually get to focus on living. Setting limits and taking cues from life before everything was at our fingertips enables us to reclaim our time, calm our minds and rejuvenate our relationships.

Diana is writing a book on living simply. Follow me for more insight into how to regain your time and rediscover simple pleasures. Follow me on Instagram to get to know me better.

Sources:

1. (2008) Americans Today Have Less Free Time, Study Says, Public Relations Society of Americahttps://apps.prsa.org/SearchResults/view/7722/105/Americans_today_have_less_free_time_study_says#
2. Alexander, Julia (2016). Study Viewers Will Spend A Total of 1.3 Years Trying to Find Something To Watch, Polygon https://www.polygon.com/2016/11/7/13549616/netflix-hulu-streaming-tv-study
3. Brown, Eileen (2020). Americans Spend Far More Time on Their Smartphones Than They Think, ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/americans-spend-far-more-time-on-their-smartphones-than-they-think/
4. Dannenmaier, Molly (2020). Phone Calls Create Stronger Bonds Than Text Based Communications, UTNews. https://news.utexas.edu/2020/09/11/phone-calls-create-stronger-bonds-than-text-based-communications/

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