Electronics free day week and/or electronic sabbath

[mekat]

Anybody do this? What are your rules? What do you do with your time? I am going to try it this weekend modified style. I decided instead of one 24 hour period, I would do two 12 hour periods from 6am-6pm Saturday and 6am-6pm Sunday. I still wanted the late evening to relax and watch a show or surf. My goal is not to disconnect but really to spend more time with my son (school age) and doing crafts, cleaning etc that I procrastinate on constantly. I am allowing two exceptions to electronics rule the Ipad and Kindle. The Ipad (no web surfing or games allowed but I will allow ebooks), my son is nonverbal and needs to work on his electronic communication & computing skills taking that away would be the equivalent of duct taping a child's mouth closed since it is his only voice and my basic Kindle because I don't buy books in print anymore.
My plans to fill the time are biking, swimming, reading, cleaning, crafts and walks.

[hibiscus869]

We do try to do this on Sundays. For religious reasons I try to make it a different kind of day. No video games, limited TV, no online shopping, internet surfing, cell phones off. Instead we read (to me a kindle or other device is fine, so many books are ebooks now), draw, spend time outside, take a walk, make cookies, nap, etc. We are not always successful. I would love to get to the point where I could avoid electronics completely the whole day.

[5PrincessMommy]

I don't know how I'd survive (kidding-sort of), lol!

It sounds like a fabulous idea though!

[mmmom]

We do it in the summer on our annual 10 day camping trip. I will post updates 3-4 times from my phone so everyone knows we are okay but other than that we are electronic free.
We also cancel netflix and cable during the summer months. In the winter it is dark by 4:30pm so I allow them to play online and watch more TV than I do other times of the year

[mekat]

It is neat to hear about others disconnecting, thanks for sharing. The first day went well and I achieved all my goals except crafts, maybe tomorrow. It is amazing what you can get done as a family when you eliminate the distractions. 12 hours is totally doable I don't think I could do a full 24 hours since at 5:55pm I was counting down the minutes and seconds until I could power everything up.

[MamaNotes]

I like this idea of getting rid of it during the day but still allowing it in the evening.

[mommycass]

I do the same thing many days through the week. I usually get back to it by 4-5 because I use internet for recipes We don't have cable, we watch movies sometimes or I let the kids watch Disney Jr on my Sprint Tv but we go days without TV. I homeschool so tv and internet can be very distracting and take a lot away from my day. I also believe that things that distract us from Gods presence are false idols. So its all about keeping your family balanced. Too much of anything is bad if its distracting you from your relationship with God. I also think its a great idea in teaching our children that even as adults we have to create boundaries. Awesome job, and I think kindle and ipad are perfectly fine, you know where boundries are needed