A week without TV, video games, or computers (well...)

My son brought home a form from school that talked about having an "unplugged" week - a week with no TV, no video games, no computers. My son loves to play video and computer games, but he wanted to try taking a week off and being more active. Sounds like a nice idea, I thought, so we signed him up, my wife and I signed, and we sent him off to school with the form.

Imagine my surprise when he told me on Monday "remember dad, you can't watch any TV, play video games, or play on the computer this week!"

"I thought you took the pledge, not me" was my response. He shook his head, pulled out the signed form, and showed me what it said. The whole family had pledged to be unplugged for the week. Man, I have got to read forms more carefully!

So we spent a week unplugged. Mostly. I was surprised to find that my son handled it better than I and my wife did. I'd find myself hopping on my laptop and checking my personal e-mails or starting to get to a web site I follow, then remember and stop myself. Sometimes I'd go ahead and continue, pretending I was working. My wife would wait until the kids were in bed, then watch a little TV, and I found myself watching too - even shows I don't normally watch. My son made it through the whole week without any problem, spent much more time outside, hung out with his friends more, and was much more active. I guess I'm much more habituated to being "plugged in" or at least just passivelyt watching...

That sure messed up my theory that my son was much more into being plugged in than I was. I found it surprisingly hard to stay off-line, so I'd cheat quite a bit. By the end of the week I was doing pretty well, but my son handled it with no problems and no cheating.

So I learned something about myself and my son, spent less time watching TV and playing games, and more time messing around with my son. All in all it was a good experience and I'll definitely repeat it next year if the school promotes the unplugged week again. We also have a semi-unplugged week over the summer when we go to our cabin - no computer, no video games. It does get some Canadian channels, so we usually watch a little TV or rent some videos, but we are quite unplugged from our normal life styles.