Screen Free...Trying to Be

I don't know where I heard "Screen Free 'Til the Age of Three" because I couldn't find anything online about that but found tons of stuff on trying to keep your child screen free before they are 2. In fact the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) recommends that. You can read more about that here. So Mike and I have tried our hardest to keep it screen free for our little, energetic munchkin. I think we've done  a great job actually. He's almost not interested in the T.V. when it's on. He'd rather play with his toys. If a basketball game or football game is one he'll look at the T.V. and say, "BAALLL!" If he sees a commercial with a dog in it he will say, "DOGGY!" If he hears clapping on T.V. he will clap along. If there is a song that comes on that inspires him to dance, he will dance. Most of the time he will go back to playing with his toys and books. He sees us on the computer and will climb up onto the chair and start smacking and pushing buttons on the keyboard:

Neither of us have smart phones or iPads of any sort so we don't have to deal with that...yet. I think the one time we really sat him in front of the T.V. to watch something was when he was a bit under the weather and he watched the french film "The Red Balloon" which is only 30 minutes long, but he sat and watched the entire thing. (You can watch it here if you like...it was one of my favorites when I was wee.) I do find myself more aware of what I see on T.V. or on the computer when I know his little eyes are watching. I am  more sensitive to the violence that I see (there is so much violence in cartoons that we don't even think about!) So I am always talking over things and telling him how that would really hurt if we did that in real life. The other day he got up on the chair and typed on the computer and somehow pulled up iTunes and managed to get a song to play all on his own and then he started to dance on the chair:

So, it's challenging to go screen free but we try our hardest. We almost never (with the exception of The Red Balloon and sometimes some PBS show) plop him in front of the T.V. as a way to get a breather for ourselves. We like our misery. Just kidding. Stan B is our cable T.V. he is so much fun to watch.