Screenless day

On Monday large boy screwed up at making good decisions at school. We all do it and its important to make mistakes so we can learn from them. He did something foolish and got carried away. We’re a bit disappointed, but also proud of how he handled the outcome. As a consequence, by agreement between him and us, he’s lost access to his Switch for a week.

And he’s surprised me. He hasn’t moaned or asked for it and his conversation has extended beyond Lego Jurassic World and Minecraft – which is lovely. On the way to school this morning we discussed why the moon is a moon and whether the sun would form a black hole if it exploded.

Husband is away so I knew I needed to be organized to get him to Cubs on time, solo. I picked the boys up just after 4.30pm and heard about their days. While I was making tea, small boy asked the perennial “what shall I do now?” Before I could suggest playing with one of their toys, large boy asked to draw.

They’ve been studying the rainforest in year 3 and large boy has been making his way through the beautifully illustrated On The Origin Of Species (abridged and drawn by Sabina Radeva). So they sat and drew and coloured for 20 minutes while I sorted their tea out.

After eating and getting changed for Cubs, they carried on and their drawings got left on the table when we went to drop large boy off.

I’ve just been through to the kitchen to tidy before bed and found their pictures as they were left. We have an owl (started as a duck), possibly in a coffin, by small boy and a variety of carefully copied creatures by large boy.

It was a beautiful evening spent together, chatting about animals and evolution and whether ducks are purple and owls have orange feet.

Maybe taking away screens – games and TV – is something we should do more often. All too easily, we say “yes” to screen time. Partly for peace and partly because we want the boys to have shared experiences with their friends – no one wants to be the only kids in their class without minecraft. But on days like this, which could just as easily have been from my childhood or my parents’ or grandparents’, there’s a huge appreciation of the simple things.