Recently I made a shameful discovery….I had become an addict…an iPhone addict.  I was loaded up with apps like Facebook, emails, etc so my phone was constantly dinging and buzzing.  While I was at home with my two toddlers, I found that I couldn’t help myself.  I always jumped for the unlock button every time an email came through.  I was often scrolling for Facebook updates from people I didn’t care about and hadn’t seen in 10 years.  Why did I suddenly care more about emails and updates from strangers than playing with my own kids?  I decided I needed a serious intervention.

At first it was hard.  Every time I heard a ding or buzz from the kitchen drawer, my hands itched to check it.  However, I slowly learned to live without my phone and I found that I was truly paying attention to what they were saying and doing.   Best of all, I went back to truly playing with the kids because I knew up front I wouldn’t allow myself to be interrupted by email dings.  

I thought back to games I played as a kid and I started getting creative.  Now one of the kids’ favorite games is something that I played when I was growing up, with slight modification.  I bought a couple small buckets and a bunch of fluffy multi-colored balls from the local craft store.  The game is sort of like an Easter Egg Hunt.  They have to go sit down and close their eyes in the living room while I “hide the blueberries”.  I put them everywhere: on the fireplace, on couches, in corners of the room.  I hide dozens of them and when I’m done I tell them they can open their eyes because it’s time to pick all the blueberries.  They scurry around the room with buckets in hand, looking for all the “blueberries”.  They shriek with excitement every time they find one to put in the bucket.  When they’re done, they beg me to hide them again.

It’s a great game because they learn patience while I hide everything, then they get exercise as they scurry all around the room.  It boosts their self-esteem when I praise them for being so smart to find everything.

Finding ways to boost self-esteem is very important to me and I certainly wasn’t getting it done while I was addicted to my phone, so I would call my intervention a huge success.  Now I constantly look for new games to play with them and I find that they even come up with their own games from time to time.  That can be the most rewarding of all, to watch my kids get creative on their own and I’m proud to say that I don’t passively watch their creativity while tapping my phone.  I actively watch and encourage their creativity and it’s far more interesting.

I will admit that we don't spend every SECOND of every day looking for fun things to do.  Mommy needs some free time occasionally too!