Wondering How to Get Your Kids Off Their Screens? I May Have the Answer!

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As a parent, one of the main challenges we have over any school holiday is trying to coax the kids off their screens. In our house we don’t have ‘rules’ as such but we don’t like the use of devices for hours on end. However, when trying to get the kids to put down their devices we can be met with the well-known “I’m bored” and “What can I do?”. Knowing this can be a problem for most parents, Leyla Preston a mum to 4, came up with a way of getting kids interested in things other than screens!

Leyla was kind enough to send us a copy of her brand-new book the ‘Screen-Free Fun Winter Holiday Adventure Journal’. The journal aims to get kids off their screens and doing something not only fun but that also challenges them with various tasks. The journal is jam packed full of 101 activities for children aged 5-12 years. There is also an activity tick list included in the journal so you can tick off all the activities as your child completes them. A printable version of the tick list chart is also available so you could stick it up on the fridge for your children to see.

The winter holidays can be one of the hardest to keep children entertained as its cold, rainy and miserable most days! It can be hard to think up interesting things to do every day so to break up your child’s screen filled day, they can take the journal and pick a task at random to complete. The tasks vary in length and input needed so you might need to tweak the activities to suit your own children. Most can be done by the children without your input but where you are needed, these activities are marked with a blue ‘adult help needed’ badge. The Tools section is a big list of all the things you will need to complete the journal. I’m not sure this is needed as my initial reaction was ‘wow I’m going to need a lot of ‘extra’ things here!’ However, it just includes everything you might need such as eggs, paint, tissue paper so generally things we have in the house anyway.

Each page is simply laid out so your child can just get on with the activity. It’s clear what tools you need, and the cute illustrations make it a really nice journal to use. Mia chose an activity one day and Lottie chose one another day so your children could take it in turns to pick too.

Mia picked task 66. Do some winter puzzles. This task is all about having some quiet time and sitting doing some fun puzzles. Mia chose to try the wordsearch out as she’s a fan of wordsearches!

Lottie picked task 28. Have a snowball fight. The task is all about going outside and having a snowball fight with her friends but as we are still in November and we don’t tend to get snow until February/March time, the task said she could colour in the cool wintery picture instead. Lottie loves colouring so she grabbed her felt tip pens and got colouring!

Each day try to include EFFECTS, these are explained in the journal but basically, they are Exercise, Fresh air, Freedom, Education, Communication, Time to be alone, and Stimulation. Each page of the journal shows you what part of EFFECTS the particular chosen task uses which is really useful as a parent to ensure your children are having as balanced a day as possible.

I love this journal and my 2 have had a really fun time completing the activities inside. Each page is colourful and interesting, and the tasks are so varied, that there hasn’t been one they’ve been bored of or not interested in! I would recommend buying one for each child though as there was a bit of falling out over who was going to colour or write on the pages! If they had one journal each, then they could both fill out the activities together as they went along. The very last challenge is to complete the journal and get your certificate at the end of the book which is a lovely touch. Kids love a certificate!

The Screen-Free Fun Winter Holiday Adventure Journal isn’t about shaming parents in how much their child uses a device or is in front of a screen, but it’s designed as a starting point for parents who don’t have the time or struggle to think of things to get their kids interested in every day. It has made tricky days much easier and has allowed me to relax a bit knowing that the girls have something nice to do together each day. The journal is a lovely keepsake of everything you’ve done over the holidays, and I would highly recommend it to every parent! Apart from anything else, we have been able to keep the kids off their screens (for the most part!) There is also a Summer, Halloween and Easter version online which we will definitely be getting!

The Journal is available from Friday 25th November for the special price of £9.99 until Friday 2nd December, when it will go up to £15.99 so grab yours asap!