Your child survived summer camp without screens. Now what?

In their Cape Cod camp, the girls cannot use screens, and this long hiatus gives Mr Davis and his wife hope for a return to some normalcy before the pandemic. “We’re going to do more looking out the window and more thinking, without having a device that thinks for you,” he said.

The dropouts from the camps this summer were particularly shocking for many children who have spent the past year and a half glued to phones, tablets and game consoles. But when they get home, after weeks of actual activities like canoeing, hiking and roasting s’mores, with no devices in sight, they should be in a better frame of mind to accept the new rules. screen, experts in child development say.

Sandy Rubenstein, owner and manager of Wingate-Kirkland Camp, where Hannah, 10, and Emma, ​​13, travel, said that in addition to feeling homesick this summer, many campers are over hard to relax at night. . They got used to looking at iPads before going to bed. “Just reading a book and shutting down naturally has been a struggle for many children,” she said.

Campers are complaining more than in the past about the lack of devices, she said, and many have been trying to negotiate on iPad for some time. “There is no negotiation,” Ms. Rubenstein said. Hannah said she cried for the first five days without her phone because she missed her relatives and friends back home, whom she could no longer contact. “It just got easier,” she said, when I called her on the camp director’s cell phone.

Mia Rubenstein, the 17-year-old daughter of the camp director who is a training counselor there, said she initially felt weird being without her phone. “The first day I had a withdrawal,” she said. “After that, it was a relief.”

Mr Davis and his wife are still figuring out what the post-camp rules will entail. They’re not averse to screens, but want kids to use them more consciously – FaceTiming friends instead of group-texting, for example, and watching curated TV shows rather than hitting the potholes. bunny on YouTube or TikTok. Mr. Davis has scheduled day camps and beach trips to fill the remaining weeks before school. If the girls are bored at home, he said, “they can go and weed the garden.”

Rebecca Battles, director of human resources near Miami, has been teaching her 12-year-old son Collin practical skills such as changing light bulbs and cleaning the pool filter since returning home from three weeks. He spent two weeks on a road trip with his grandparents and a week in a camp near Orlando. He was without his gaming PC all the time. Before leaving, he called the camp a prison.

“Kids forget there was life before screens because that’s all of them,” Ms. Battles said. “Once at camp, he had a blast.

When Collin got home in mid-July, Ms Battles enforced the summer screen time rules that were in place before he left: no technology until 10 a.m. and none between noon and 5 p.m. . . Since returning, Ms Battles said, he has spent a lot of time sitting down, doing housework and talking to his mother. “I think what he learned at camp this year is how to stand still,” she said.

Can a short period of complete lack of technology bring lasting benefits, or will campers resume the screen-induced zombie gaze at the first opportunity?

People often fall back into old behaviors when that behavior was a coping mechanism, said Michael Milham, director of the Center for the Developing Brain at the Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit mental health care provider in New York City. . Since many children have used technology as a means of coping with the pandemic, looking at their trends before 2020 could give parents a better idea of ​​how they will fare after their camp-related tech disruption.

Experts largely agree on one thing: don’t expect your child to come back from camp completely transformed. “People should take technological detox as the first step. Drug rehab doesn’t solve the problem, it creates an opportunity, ”said Dr Milham. “It’s about what you do next.”

What you can do

There are ways in which parents can help maintain the screen-free positivity that came from those weeks in the woods. In addition to the screen weaning advice I provided in a previous column, experts are suggesting ways to minimize screen use during the weeks between camp and school.

Maintain realistic expectations. “When we bring them home, we can’t just say, ‘You’ve been screenless for a while and you can’t have screens anymore,’” said David Anderson, vice president of the Child Mind Institute and former summer camp director. “The friends they have at home don’t live in a cabin with them.”

Not only will kids want to reconnect with their friends back home, but they’ll likely want to stay in touch with friends at camp as well, so it’s important to set times when phones or tablets should and shouldn’t be used. This could mean obeying pre-pandemic rules, such as no screens at the table, in the car on short trips, or during certain outdoor activities.

Reproduce what the children liked. Dr Anderson said it was important to understand what the kids value most about the camp and then try to replicate it. For many children, it is the freedom and independence to be away from the constant supervision of their parents. Kids can choose bike rides or roam the neighborhood with friends rather than watching screens. (If the idea of ​​kids on the loose makes you anxious, consider giving them a simple, kid-focused smartwatch for communication and location tracking.)

Emma Davis said what she loves most about the camp is that the friends are always available to hang out. She said her parents could help her organize her friends’ contact information and become more independent in scheduling meetings so she doesn’t have to rely on them for planning.

Ban bedroom screens. I keep coming back to this as a universal rule, because scrolling or texting in the middle of the night is disastrous for sleeping. It’s a rule many parents are abandoning during the pandemic, according to Dr Anderson. “The big reset we’re seeing among parents this summer is checking screens at night. No one is good at regulating themselves on screens after midnight, ”he said.

If kids need their phones for legitimate reasons, such as alarm clocks or music, you can set up screen time controls that turn off most functions during sleep hours.

Model the behavior you expect. Parents should see the tech reset after camp as a reboot for the whole family, not just the kids, experts say. If you expect your kids to have no devices at the table or on family walks, you should also put your device aside.

Realize that children thrive on rules. Kids can push the rules around using technology, and they can seem content when you don’t get them to put their phones down, but child development experts agree that kids are actually happier when they are. they have limits.

Hannah Davis said she often loses track of time when on the phone. “I can’t limit myself. I’m really into what I do, ”Hannah said. Although she’s a little nervous about facing new limits when she gets home, she said she realizes it will help her. “I think new rules will give us a fresh start. “

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Write to Julie Jargon at [email protected]