Screen-Free Week is coming soon - April 29 - May 5, just after Spring Break. We are gearing up for a full week of screen-free fun!
Screen-Free Week is an annual event where children, families, schools and communities are encouraged to turn off screens and "turn on life". Instead of relying on television programming for entertainment, participants read, daydream, explore, enjoy nature, and spend time with family and friends.
In honor of this exciting opportunity, our Parents Council has designed Media Basket kits for WSNO families to enjoy creating together. What are "media baskets," you ask? They are baskets that house smart devices as a way of keeping them from being a distraction as well as promoting togetherness during meals family time. These kits will be for sale for just $5 each during Screen-Free Week, April 29-May 3, at a special booth that will be set up after drop off and and pick up at each campus. Look for the media basket sales booth near the school offices.
We will also be hosting a screening of Celling Your Soul, a documentary that is an honest conversation about our love/hate relationship with our devices from the first "digitally socialized" generation and... what we can do about it. Date and time TBA - watch for it in the Waldorf Weekly!
For questions about Screen-Free Week, contact Lesley Rubenstein. Contact Alicia Square for more about Media Baskets. To learn more about Celling Your Soul, contact Holly Groh.
A note about Screen-Free Week from WSNO Parent Dr. Holly Gore Groh
I have been asked to write what’s it been like raising children (four kids, now ages 13-21y) in a media/ screen - limited home, a simpler environment, for eighteen years. Immediately, the word “connection” comes to mind. The depth and breadth of our positive attachments to each other and life have been so enhanced living this way.
“Connection” has included love of friends, family, neighbors, teachers, coaches, animals (inside and out), and place. Bonding in creating our village for our family and now watching our young adults maneuver and create theirs, as they navigate the world, has been rewarding. “Connection” on a soul level as our family puts their imperfect arts, music, and voices out there, trusting in sharing with the world, has been so satisfying. Our lives have definitely been messy and awkward along the side of deeply gratifying in choosing this path. No matter what has happened, we’ve been there for each other, our friends, our community, and ourselves showing up with a genuine passion and love not possible, for us, living with screens.
Lastly and importantly, “connection” has been to values. As my husband expresses, it’s already hard enough to raise kids and with only so many hours in the day. By limiting screens (an unrealistic, alternative world), parenting in real time then allows our kids to focus on values. Of course, our family’s values now and then get scrutinized laboriously by our teens and young adults in these years. Even then, the kids’ examinations and discussions over our values and theirs have been so worth these times. They are making their way into what will be their way of living. (“the child is father to the man.” - poet William Wordsworth.)
To have one week, to quiet oneself, one’s family, with the support of one’s school, is a sincere gift. Make this week a priority! Put away all the devices: smart phones, smart watches, fit bits, computers, etc. Listen and enjoy the quiet. (Or take a messy, awkward bite out of life!) Discover what’s within - you and your children. It may just be an amazing week.
Wishing peace,
Holly