A Daring Proposal: One Week Without Screen Time

One year ago, my nine-year-old pitched signing up for a weeklong camp. One year later, she (and the rest of the family) were confronted with what that really meant.

Photo by Lucas Canino on Unsplash

My nine-year-old became obsessed with the movie Parent Trap last year. The obsession, thankfully, was not taking notes about what to do if your parents get divorced, but camp. A camp where you’re bunked up with other kids, spending days swimming in a lake, eating by a fire, and most importantly, you’re far away from home.

Months after, we ended up somewhere that coincidentally took place in and around some local campgrounds. Can you guess what they were advertising? Camp. Pictures of kids having a blast in bunks, around fires, in the water. My oldest’s eyes went wide.

“Can I go?”

My wife never did anything like that as a kid. Nor did I. So, uh, maybe?

Stacks of application paperwork and many, many months later, it arrived: camp.

Our oldest has done many sleepovers. But she’s has never been away, in somewhere decidedly foreign and with no friends or family, for a week. If something went wrong, or she wanted to leave, we weren’t a block away. It was 30 minutes. On drop-off day, I’m not sure who was more nervous about the reality of the situation: her or us.

A week away from home. And importantly, a week away from screen time, too.