Spring Break Without Screens

“I could write a blog about tonight.” 

I closed my eyes as I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair and the evening’s events replayed in my mind.

“No, never mind. I probably shouldn’t. I don’t think I could portray us very well.”

Tighe turned off the faucet where he was brushing his teeth.

“Yeah, definitely not,” he agreed.

But here I am, six nights later, and for some reason I’m doing it anyway. 

It’s just that I have to explain why spring break was incredibly painful this year.

I mean, first of all because we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed home, Tighe and I were all amped up to get some spring cleaning done. We rented a dumpster, where we deposited three broken pieces of furniture; miscellaneous, discarded toys; and our swingset, which was aging and rotting and unsafe. Half of one of the legs of the ladder had been torn off, it was an emergency room trip waiting to happen.

Plus we have several more trips coming later this spring and summer, and amidst the chaos that is lacrosse, soccer, and rugby season, a week to do nothing sounded pretty darn good. 

Except it ended up being eleven days because it started with an unexpected snow day and a scheduled professional day for teachers. 

But the first two or three days were pretty good. We structured the kids’ days around some chores and outdoor play time and board games and puzzles and reading. 

All of which would earn them some screen time later that afternoon.

Seemed fair. But excessive screen time leads to bad attitudes, misbehavior, and a sense of entitlement. Which is a nice way of saying that they turn into jerks.

So it should have been no surprise that Sunday evening when the broccoli, sausage, and penne casserole I made for dinner was met with disgust. 

A chorus of “I’m not eating that” circled the table. Even from Lou, who usually eats whatever’s served to him.

Tess was the only one who didn’t complain. She’s so picky that she’s used to not eating what I serve for dinner. Every night, she scans the table for something she likes and when she doesn’t find it, she hops down from her seat, scampers out to the kitchen, and fishes some string cheese out of the deli meat drawer. 

Which is what she did this particular night, too. Slowly peeling the strands of mozzarella in silence as she watched her brothers melt down around her. Broccoli sets them off every time.

“I’m going to pour my milk into it!” Nate said, marching over to the casserole and pretending to dump his milk into the Pyrex dish. “Then no one can eat it!”

He was smirking, but he was also cautiously watching our reactions, knowing he was pushing limits.

“Don’t you dare!” Tighe boomed, “I think you guys had too much screen time today. I like the casserole and if you ruin it so that no one can eat it, you won’t get screen time for the rest of the school year!”

Whoa. That’s quite a threat. 

Nate took his cup of milk and returned to his seat, where he sheepishly slumped his shoulders and watched the table in silence. Still smirking, but quiet.

Sam, on the other hand, doesn’t always realize when the limit has been reached. 

“Yeah, it’d be a shame if I dumped my milk in there,” he said with sarcasm, positioning his cup just above the dish and pretending to pour.

“Sam!” I was still feeling pretty patient, but I have no tolerance for wasting food, “You have a history of clumsiness, so you probably shouldn’t even fake it. Or pretend to fake it.”

“Yeah, Sam,” Tighe kept going. “Or you seriously won’t get screens until May!”

A big time threat, but since they were both warned, the risk seemed small. 

Sam set his cup down on the table and we carried on with dinner. They each—except Tess— tried tiny bites of casserole. Not broccoli, of course, but at least some noodles. Then they filled up on milk and apple slices. 

But their snarkiness continued. Even Lou was being a smartass. Well, not intentionally, he was just mimicking what he saw his brothers do. It was loud and vaguely hostile, and in all the commotion, Sam, somehow—and I honestly don’t really know how—bumped his milk in such a way that it projectiled into the casserole dish. 

Which would have been fine had it been white milk. It would have made it a bit creamier.

But this was chocolate milk. 

And I don’t care how progressive you are, chocolate and broccoli and sausage do not mix.

I stood up, my hamstrings shoving my chair back into the buffet behind me, and then I ran to grab paper towels. 

Tighe stood and started shouting. His patience was worn and he had to follow through on his threat.

“Sam! I warned you! We told you not to do it. Erin told you not to put your milk there because you spill a lot, but you were careless.”

Sam had fallen to the floor, crying. He knew what was coming.

Nate, at the other end of the table, clutched his hair with both hands in suspense and fear.

Tess, who had barely said a word the entire meal, had paused her string-cheese peeling and her mouth was wide open in anticipation. 

And Lou, unable to read a room, laughed his deep belly laugh and pointed at the milk puddling in the pile of noodles. 

“No screens until the end of the school year!” It was the most tyrannical statement he’d ever said. That I’ve witnessed anyway. 

I lowered my head to hide my shock at the harsh sentence. This is a punishment to us. 

“That’s it, I’m done!” Nate grabbed his last remaining apple slice and headed upstairs. We didn’t see him again until just before bedtime. 

Lou was still chuckling and stabbing his food with his fork.

Sam was on the floor crying and refusing to help clean up any of the milky mess. This was a death blow for him.

Already we had a “no screens on weekdays” rule. And weekends were usually jam packed with birthday parties, sports, and playdates, so they were too busy to overdose on video games. 

But screen time is still a good incentive. And by incentive, I mean bribe. Whether it’s the iPad, the Nintendo Switch, the Kindle, the TV, or the use of my laptop, it’s how I get them to do chores and other activities they deem unpleasant. And maybe that’s not healthy, but it works. 

As we cleaned up dinner later, I consulted my calendar to count the number of weeks until summer break.

Eleven.

Eleven weeks. 

“It’ll be good,” Tighe was saying, “Every time we’ve banned screens, they’ve been great. Better behaved, more creative, more outdoorsy. They always find more to do. And they’re more pleasant.”

And by “they,” he meant Sam. And he’s right. 

Sam is like two different people when he has screen access and when he doesn’t. 

Without screens, Sam’s more intrinsically motivated. He makes messes and builds things and colors and tutors Tess and lectures Lou and rides his bike around the neighborhood and tries to “cook” and plays basketball and constructs forts and reads books and does logic puzzles and agrees to go on outings and helps out around the house and cures cancer and solves world hunger. 

Okay, we’re still waiting on those last three, but we have high hopes. 

So it’s been almost a week without screens and without school and without sports and other extracurriculars. And most of their friends have been in Colorado or Florida or Mexico or California or anywhere else that’s not a simple bike ride away. 

And Nate and Sam have survived. 

And so have we.