Summer Screen Plan: How I manage Screen Time

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This site also contains other affiliate links. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links too (at no additional cost to you).

The days are longer and the heat is rising. We have closed the books for the school year and officially entered the summer of 2022! Now tonintroduce our summer screen plan.

The kids and I couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead this summer. That being said, if given the chance, they would sit all day in their rooms, or worse, in the room next to where I work, playing on the phone, computer or watching the TV.

Last Year

Last summer, I had to figure out how I was going to provide structure and responsibility to my kids during this summer break in an effort to curb the zombie-like state that my kids would no doubt have entered. I came up with a plan and shared what we were doing to manage their screen time slugfest.

The Summer Before…

I worked from home full time and we were still very covid-cautious so the kids were home all day, every day, along with me. Anytime I would ask them to do something, they couldn’t be dragged away from doing nothing without a huge ordeal and I didn’t have time for it. I was working and I was stressed.

I was tired of my kids lack of desire to do anything. The more they are on their devices, the more difficult it is to get them to be functional members of the household, let alone society! And then the tantrums come, ending in a meltdown by everyone including yours truly. I realized I allowed this to happen and decided I needed to take control.

Additionally, I was also concerned about their anxiety, social skills, creativity, health and so much more. I didn’t want them to keep missing out on experiencing life!

Enter The Summer Screen Plan!

I made some RULES for summertime after searching on Pinterest for inspiration. A lot of people had similar ideas but I wanted to create a plan that was more in line with my family’s needs.

I basically created a Pay-to-Play System…

Every week day the kids have a list of items they are expected to complete in order to be allowed access to their screens. This includes laptops, tablets, phones, gaming systems, switches and, depending on my mood, TV. So basically no screen time except during meals.

Morning Expectations

They are to do a few things when they awake:

Brush their teeth
Get dressed
Eat breakfast
Straighten up their floor

I know these seem like a gimme but not with these two! I have to beg, borrow and steal just to have them do normal functional daily activities!

Brain Matters

After the morning items are done, they are to move on to some activities that trigger those brain waves to flow! I give them about 15-20 minutes for each of the following activities:

Reading
Creativity time – making or building something
Writing or drawing
Completing a day in the summer workbooks their school provided

The first thing I had them write was a summer bucket list so I could gage what they wanted to do and hopefully get them semi-jazzed to write something.

Let’s Get Physical

The lack of movement in my home is staggering! I needed to shake up the sedentary activity. Between that and the lack of sunlight my kids see, I am becoming concerned about their fitness and health. So at some point within the rest of the daily to-dos they are expected to do the following…

30 minutes of outdoor play
15 minutes of cleaning

My kids do not like going outside but it is getting a little better. I can’t imagine my life as a kid without it. I mean my mom had to force me out there but so much fun happened in the yard. But I digress.

As for the cleaning task, the idea is more about finding a target area in the house (particularly in ther rooms) and focus on organzing it. The goal is to have everything gone through and organized by the time school starts back up or, even better, by the time we have our garage sale.

I find that using our Alexa timer helps. First, I know the proper amount of time was spent. And second, they know too.

After all this is done, then they can have their screens.

Realistically, they could be done by lunch but they would rather argue and whine. And the minute I become lax about it, they take all sorts of advantage. So I have learned that I need to be pretty strict.

I try to be flexible enough to tweak the plan along the way when something isn’t working.

The Rewards

Overall, after implementing the Summer Screen Plan, they could be found playing and having unsolicited fun together. They beamed with pride as they showed me what they created. Sometimes they even forgot about their devices all together and just played with no care of a timer nor thought of their device!

I would be lying if I didn’t admit there were a few bumps in the road and some arguments upon implementing the plan.

The outdoor play was our biggest struggle. Rain, fertilizer, allergies, and my inability to take the time away from work to argue with them all factor into it making it difficult to check the boxes.

It took a little time to catch on, BUT, once I did and we hit the point with no whining, no complaining and just having fun, I knew I did the right thing. And it was all worth it.

This year they will be out of the house two days a week so I am hoping with only three days, they are easier about it. I really feel like the plan hits all of the concerns that I have for them so I will be keeping it the same in terms of activity this year.

I can’t wait to see what they created and do this summer with the assistance of our Summer Screen Plan.