{"id":1870,"date":"2017-06-23T11:59:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T18:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1870"},"modified":"2017-06-23T12:05:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T19:05:14","slug":"1870","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/?p=1870","title":{"rendered":"Off To A Good Start"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Summer is upon us and it is time to fight the yearly battle of the electronics. \u00a0This is a fight for which I have no childhood reference. \u00a0As a kid, there were Saturday morning cartoons but that was pretty much it. \u00a0By noon, your only choices were infomercials or old black and white movies. \u00a0No streaming services, no endless cable channels, no YouTube content. \u00a0Whether you wanted it or not, you had to find something else to do other than veg out in front of a screen. \u00a0So I don’t remember arguing with my parents over the appropriate amount of screen time. \u00a0I was never ordered to unglue myself from my phone and get outside. \u00a0I do remember being bored and wandering around the neighborhood or setting up a tent and binge reading library books. \u00a0I remember fighting with my sister \u00a0and inventing wildly elaborate games together. \u00a0Summer was a slow and unsupervised time when I was a kid. \u00a0Oh how times have changed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Given a chance, my kids would want to spend every minute of summer online. \u00a0Either playing video games, streaming shows, or scrolling through Instagram and Snapchat feeds. \u00a0Books? Outside? Games? \u00a0Um, no thanks. \u00a0Super boring. \u00a0Not interested. \u00a0But as a parent we are constantly being lectured to “restrict screen time.” \u00a0And so the summer compromising begins. \u00a0I’ve tried charts and “earning” time, I’ve tried brides and cajoling. \u00a0Ever method pretty much fails eventually and \u00a0I end up with kids sneaking their electronics and trying to hide from me all summer long. \u00a0It isn’t pretty.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So this year, we’re trying something a little new. \u00a0Part binge. \u00a0Part purge. \u00a0From the moment they wake up until lunch time, they are free to do whatever they want. \u00a0No time restrictions. \u00a0They can binge their little online addicted hearts out. \u00a0But after lunch, they are cut off. \u00a0Nothing but boredom and summer doldrums for the afternoon. \u00a0The usual mopping and plaintive laments of being “literally bored to death” occurs but I can counter with 1. You are not actually dead so stop misusing the term “literally” and 2. You had all morning to gorge so I feel no sympathy for you. \u00a0And the results? \u00a0Amazing.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Leina decided to make her very own room escape for the family. \u00a0She spent the afternoon devising clues, codes, and a backstory for us. \u00a0It was awesome and fun and just the perfect way to while away a long summer afternoon. \u00a0Kulia grabbed a book she had been meaning to read and headed outside. \u00a0She lolled on the lounger, lay in the grass, moved back to the shade and just read and read and read. \u00a0 It warmed my maternal heart to see her out there. \u00a0And of course, I have a stack of games just dying to be played. \u00a0Now, after lunch, I have two willing victims wandering about the downstairs. \u00a0 Muwahahahaha.<\/p>\n

It is early days, but I’m hopefully we have finally achieved the summer electronic compromise of my dreams. \u00a0Only time will tell, but so far, the outlook is good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer is upon us and it is time to fight the yearly battle of the electronics. \u00a0This is a fight for which I have no childhood reference. \u00a0As a kid, there were Saturday morning cartoons but that was pretty much it. \u00a0By noon, your only choices were infomercials or old black and white movies. \u00a0No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2Kqhb-1870","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1870"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1876,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1870\/revisions\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}