Over my 14-plus years of being a parent I have often found myself researching toys and projects to help teach my children to be more creative. I’ve bought them puzzles and robots they can build, do-it-yourself computers, STEM packages and more in hopes of igniting their creativity and launching them into a stratosphere of success.

I find myself eagerly waiting to see them get passionate about something so I can help cultivate that passion in any way possible. Please love the guitar. Write songs. I’ll help get them recorded and we’ll shoot music videos. Unfortunately, they don’t love it that much.  Please love a sport. We can get the best coaches and training and help you become a superstar athlete. That hasn’t happened either. Please love painting or dancing or origami! Anything, so I can be an amazing parent and help you shine! After a tiny bit of introspection I found that I am, in a roundabout way, using them to feel better about myself. Is that good parenting?

I look around our home and see that the kids have multiple video game systems, a virtual reality gaming system, cell phones, computers, iPads, Apple watches, televisions and more. These things were purchased with the idea of helping them learn but it seems that they are more of a distraction than anything. Most days I find my son in the basement playing videos games and my daughter upstairs in her room on her cell phone while my wife and I are on the main level of the house together. Is that good parenting?

Last week we noticed that our children had gotten way behind on their summer work. We have them do Kumon. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s supplemental math and reading to help our children continue to learn and grow over the summer. Usually, they have to do 3-4 packets a day but they hadn’t been keeping up with it. We didn’t realize quite how bad it was until we asked how many packets they needed to complete to be caught up. After much back and forth trying to get an accurate answer out of them we realized they were both over 100 packets behind! I was in shock. What? 100 packets. Clearly, not very good parenting going on here.

So, in an effort to get them back on track, I decided there was a need for drastic action. We took away their cell phones, and iPads and ear buds and video game systems including the VR system we’d just bought a few weeks ago. We also told them that they were not allowed to watch television unless we were watching something and they wanted to come join us.

At first, it was tough on us all. They didn’t want to be punished in this way and we didn’t want to argue with them about how cruel we were being. Over then next few days, we noticed that they were spending a lot more time with us. They didn’t have all of these electronic distractions so, they would ask us to come play with them. They would come and watch television shows with us and we would bond over the story lines. Even though they were starting to cut into their workload and spend a little more time with us, I didn’t expect this “punishment” to have such amazing positive results.

SOLITUDE IS CREATIVITY’S BEST FRIEND,
AND SOLITUDE IS REFRESHMENT FOR OUR SOULS.

Naomi Judd

For three days in a row, we’ve had to park our cars at the end of the driveway so the kids could shoot hoops. They were outside! On their own! I can’t remember the last time that happened. My son found an old indoor putting green I had and put it in the den and started putting a tennis ball all the time because he couldn’t find a golf ball. It got to the point where he and I had such extreme putt-putt battles that we would be hitting a 7-iron off the top of the stairs over the rail down into the den. We would start in the dining room and have to putt around the kitchen island and use furniture and items on the ground as sand traps. We had a lot of fun this week playing all kinds of crazy putt-putt.

Yesterday my wife texted me images of signs the kids had made inviting us to a family game night. Both kids spent the day developing the game night, something we haven’t done in a long, long time. We ended up having an indoor tennis/handball game that we play over a net in the den, a putt-putt tournament and then an epic game of Risk which is a board game the kids love playing. We ended the night with an ice cream drive-thru run. It was one of the best nights we’ve had in a long time.

Today my wife was telling me about how much our kids are bonding with each other. She saw them doing couples yoga poses together. What? They spend more time drawing, playing sports, playing their musical instruments and, believe it or not, my daughter is doing some origami. These are all the things I’ve been trying to get them to focus on for years. They engage with each other more and they spend a lot more time with us. My son even mentioned how much he’s enjoyed the last week without all of his electronic distractions to keep him occupied.

It seems that all of the stuff I was doing to help them be more creative was, in fact, keeping them from being creative. So, maybe unplug your kids for a week or so and see how much more charged they become.

Less is More. Nothing is Everything.