How Living Analog Makes Kids Happier

I think one of the greatest gifts you can give your child isn't another toy or activity, but simply an analog childhood. In a world where screens are becoming the default, children still learn best through real life. They need to move, explore, create, and have face-to-face interactions with the people they love. One of the biggest things kids gain from living without constant screens is more face-to-face interaction. It's why kids are always saying, Mommy, look. Just the other day, all of our kids were in the living room making some town out of Lincoln logs. Each of them had their own little sections and they all wanted me to come out and look. They wanted me to stop what I was doing and physically come and observe their creations. All the conversations that we have around the dinner table, running errands with our kids, playing catch, every moment of eye contact, these experiences teach children how to read facial expressions, how to understand emotions. This is great practice for them in having and keeping a conversation. They learn to problem solve. One of the most important things I think kids pick up from face-to-face interactions is empathy. Even from the very beginning, babies are drawn to faces. Have you ever noticed how a young baby will stare intently at his mother's face? He's not just looking, he's learning. Babies are studying expressions and watching. As the mouths move, they're noticing eye contact and they're just beginning to understand how people communicate long before they can speak. A screen simply can't replace the richness of human interaction. Children weren't designed to develop relationships through pixels. They were designed to connect with people. Think about how many times in a day you get down at your child's level, look them in the eye, and have a meaningful interaction. This is something I've been thinking more about this week and I want to make sure that it's part of every day of my life together with our kids. If you're new, hi, my name is Sheri. I'm a Christian. I'm a homeschooling mom married to my high school sweetheart. Together we have 10 children and I love encouraging other families in homeschooling here on my channel and on the blog ourlifehomeschooling.com. In my course Beyond School, The Home Education Breakthrough, I share with parents the complete approach I've refined in over 16 years raising and educating our 10 children so you can build a home education lifestyle that truly works for your family. You can find the link for that in the description box below. Can you find any black ones in there? Oh here's some. One of the things I learned early on as a mom is that kids are concrete learners. They learn not just by watching, they learn best by doing. Children experience the world through all five senses. They touch, smell, taste, hear, see. Before we put a pencil in a child's hand or try to expect any kind of academic work from them, those hands should have had a chance to dig in the dirt, knead bread dough, stack blocks, splash in puddles. They should be so familiar with the outside world, have a chance to smell flowers and listen to birds outside because their brain is making thousands of important connections. There's a quote I love. I think it's by Karen Purvis. She said, scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain unless it is done in play, in which case it takes only 10 to 20 repetitions. When kids learn through real life experiences and by playing with raw materials, they're building awareness of the world around them. Screens reduce that experience to mostly sight and sound, but real life is full sensory. And that's exactly how children's brains were designed to learn. The richer the sensory experiences, the richer the learning. Another wonderful benefit of life without screens is that kids move more. We can see them climbing trees. My kids love to run races and jump. They create their own obstacle courses. They are constantly moving. And I can tell just because they wear me out when I'm out in the yard with them, sometimes I can't always keep up with all of their games. It's good for them to build forts, to play games with balls. When they're riding a bike, they're learning balance. All of these activities improve their coordination, which in turn builds confidence in what their bodies can do. So movement is exercise, but it's also part of healthy childhood development. And here's another bonus. Kids who spend their days moving tend to be genuinely tired out at the end of the day. I've seen this with our kids in the summer. They take longer naps. They sleep better at night because they're moving more. The sun wears them out and just all the running around and sweating. There's more to do outside when the weather is so nice. So they sleep so well. My three-year-old son has been loving this book. It's called Little Excavator, and it's by, I think I'm saying her name right, Anna Doudny. She's the same person who wrote Llama Llama Red Pajama. He is just into machines. He has been since he was really young. And it's funny because our other son who is above him, he's eight, he was into balls from the time he was, as soon as he could hold a ball in his hand, everything was balls. He wanted to play basketball as soon as he could get it in the hoop. And that is still how he spends most of his time. But our three-year-old loves machines. He wants to know what every machine in a book is. And he's asking me again and again to point out which one's the tobacco, which one's the excavator. It's very sweet. When I look back on our 20 years of parenting, I believe one of the biggest contributors to my children's intelligence was simply limiting screens and replacing them with real life experiences. We have tried to bring our kids along with us in everything we're doing as much as possible. And it's not always possible. Sometimes you just need to make dinner and the kids can't be there that night. You need to just get it done because you have other things going on. But in general, we spend so much time doing hands-on things with our kids instead of spending time in front of a screen. They help me fold the laundry. When I make pancakes, there's always a child there who is my designated helper. We have a garden. The kids help us plant the seeds. They're out there weeding with us. My husband is very mechanical and he's usually out in the garage building something, fixing something. And our kids are often with him. Just the other day, our three-year-old was out in the garage with my husband. He was working on a project. And right beside him, we have this little toy that's this wooden platform with these wooden pegs and a mallet. And he was pounding the pegs through with the mallet just while my husband was hammering. So they just want to do the things that we're doing. When children spend less time on screens, they naturally spend more time doing real things. Our kids have learned to sew. They have taken a class at our co-op that was wonderful in helping them try a few projects. And once they had tried a few things, of course, then they wanted to learn how to make other things. They do chores. Everyone is involved. Our perspective is we all work together to help the family run. So if it's not your day to wash dishes, then it might be your day to sweep the floor or to clear the table. We're all working together till it gets done. These are opportunities. Every real skill a child learns gives them more confidence and they realize I can do hard things. I think this realization is even better than hearing praise from us because it's that inward understanding that they can do something that they didn't know that they were capable of. So how can we create an analog childhood for our kids? I'm going to share with you just a couple tips that we have tried to do that have been very helpful. The first is to go outside every single day. Make outdoors part of your family's normal rhythm. And it doesn't have to be elaborate. You can just take a walk. We often will just go for a walk. The kids are riding their bikes. It's leisurely, very relaxing. Or you can even just play in the backyard in the winter when it's hard to motivate yourself to get outside. My goal isn't to spend a specific amount of time outside, but just to get outside. And once we get out there, it's usually so refreshing that we end up staying longer than I had planned. And I know sometimes I just need more accountability on this. And for those times, I will reach out to a friend and plan a hike with them or plan to meet up at a park. And that also can be really helpful. Another thing is to fill your home with raw materials, blocks, material that kids can sew with or make forts with, wood scraps, Lincoln logs, Play-Doh, cardboard boxes, art supplies. Sometimes our kids will bring in all kinds of leaves and flowers and rocks, anything they find out in nature. These simple objects invite imagination in a way that electronic toys just don't. Kids react differently to something that has flashing lights and buttons than when they are having to sit and think what they can create or make with this object. Our green beans have just begun coming in from the garden. So I took some time to teach the kids how to break off the ends and then we cut them in half. I gave the little ones butter knives and as long as I'm sitting beside them, it usually goes pretty well. We will cut these. I blanch them for about a minute in water and then we take them out, let them cool and put them in court freezer bags for winter. Beans are my favorite thing that we grow in the garden because they're the easiest for the kids to help us process. Another thing I've learned when it comes to giving our kids an analog childhood is simply to put the screens away. Sometimes we'll think that we have enough self-control but if you've ever found yourself reaching for your phone without even thinking about it, you know how difficult that can be and it's something we all struggle with in this digital world. Instead, create times or parts of your day when the screens are completely away. Sometimes I'll just take my phone and it will go back in my bedroom in a drawer and this means that for a period of time we possibly can't play music in the background or I can't check the weather app or other things that are useful and not necessarily addictive but sometimes I just need for it to be off limits not just for the kids but for me for everyone. When screens disappear, we typically have more conversations, the kids get bored, the kind of boredom that starts their creative juices flowing and then they begin building or drawing, reading, pretending, they get an idea and they all run off together. They don't need constant entertainment. They simply need space, just enough time for them to get an idea that takes them in a new direction. Another tip I mentioned earlier but I'll say it again, invite your kids into your everyday work. Cook together, build something. They learn by participating and yes it takes longer and it can be messier but when you invite your kids to help you in the normal things you're doing around your house, you're raising a capable person not just simply completing a task. I have very strong memories of my grandma teaching me how to sew my own dress when I was a young girl and I think it sticks with me so much because you're working one-on-one and you're learning how to do something creative that you never knew how to do before. So these moments can become some of the richest learning experiences your child will ever have. Now after all this talk about an analog childhood, I don't want to give you the impression that we don't use screens in our home because we do. Actually when our kids hit the teenage years, we encourage them to use screens strategically so that they can learn new skills. You can learn anything on the internet. Our son learned to play the guitar on YouTube. He's learned how to take his car apart and put parts of it back together. Our kids have gained so many skills online. So I do think this changes especially as kids grow into the teen years. We live in a digital world and you can learn about anything. Our goal with our kids is for them to use technology to be productive and for them to know the difference between endless scrolling and just being drawn in and actually getting on there with something specific in mind that they want to learn about. So when our teenagers want to use the internet, which they do randomly, we want them to have something that they are specifically looking for and this helps as a guideline for them so that they're not just randomly going from one thing to the next with no purpose or intention. This is something I talk about more in my course Beyond School the Home Education Breakthrough. When our kids are young, we want them to have as much as possible a screen-free childhood. But as they grow into teens, we want them to use technology wisely. So check out that link if you'd like to learn more about that. An analog childhood isn't about rejecting technology. It's about protecting what young children need most during the years when their brains and bodies are developing. They need connection and movement. Time to imagine. They need more hands-on experiences and real life. Because childhood isn't meant to be watched through a screen, it's meant to be lived. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.