Children

boy’s probably going to want to play video games, my girl’s gonna shun me, but on Friday night, we’re all gonna sit down, and we’re going to look each other in the eye, and say I love you, and [ask] what did you do this week, just reconnect for a minute. Like, that’s the long haul of it.” [On the July 22, 2018 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, quoted in Kveller, August 1, 2018.]

Tiffany mentions that a big part of her Technology Shabbat is inviting people over for Friday night dinner. Even in the era before smartphones, families had to find time for each other. A few decades ago, Prager and Telushkin wrote, “Those who observe Shabbat invariably do so with family and/or friends.

The Shabbat laws, by prohibiting technological companionship, compel us to seek out human companionship. The Shabbat meals are a typical example. The Friday night meal in a home which observes the Shabbat is a lengthy one at which all the participants sing and speak for hours on end. Unlike the rest of the week, no one has another appointment to run to at the end of the meal. If the talk is stopped to watch a basketball game, or to go to a movie, this means that basketball and movies are more significant than family discussion and Judaism.”

Even if you are just eating with your family, you can have great discussions. To inspire conversation, consider these discussion starters. You could put each question on a separate card, giving one to each person and re-assigning them in other weeks.

If you could invite anyone in the world to your home for dinner, who would it be? In Chapter 7 (on addiction), Shlain notes that “so many technology pioneers, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, strictly limited their kids’ screen use. Younger tech titans, who’ve just started having kids, already seem to What is something terrific that happened this week?

What is your favorite Jewish (or Chinese, or Middle-Eastern) food?

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

What is your favorite thing to do with your family?

Share your favorite book. Why do you enjoy it?

If you had a million dollars to give away, what kind of organization would you give it to?

What makes someone a good friend?

What did you do this week to help someone?

If you tire of such questions, you could try what my kids enjoyed — take the questions from games like Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit and see who can answer them at the dinner table. These questions often lead to pretty solid dinner discussions as well.

Some families (including mine) read and discuss ageappropriate stories connected to the weekly portion of the Torah. As education director of a synagogue, some years I sent home weekly one-pagers, summarizing the portion, with family discussion questions. Story discussions are a great way to share your values with your children, especially when moral dilemmas are illustrated by the stories. Of course you don’t need the

Torah to find stories with moral dilemmas. be following suit. (Makes you think of the drug dealers’ rule of never getting high on their own supply.)” You may want to read Melinda Gates: I spent my career in technology. I wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids.

(see Resource section for the URL)

Discover’s May 2020 issue observes, “The average child younger than 2 spends around 40 minutes a day looking at screens, sparking a recommendation from The American Academy of Pediatrics that kids under 18 months avoid screens altogether, though video chats with relatives are acceptable. Pediatricians are concerned about poor sleep and stunted language skills. MRI scans show that screen time can even change the structure of the brain. The article goes on to discuss video-gaming (which does have some positive benefits) and smartphone stress. Chapter 10 of 24/6 goes more into depth on all of this.

Near the end of that chapter (Page 110), Shlain asserts that “Technology and sugar are two things I feel our culture audaciously pours into our kids without enough limits. There are so many other things we don’t have control over. But those two, we have at least some.” She urges going against the norm, even for teenagers. this Peanuts cartoon.

What can a parent do? What can you add to

Peppermint Patty’s list? What activities would bring joy to you and to them? Only after answering these questions in some detail, look at pages 185 through 187, where ideas for age 5 and under and for ages 6 to 12 are listed, with ideas for teens and older on the following pages. When they were young, my kids would spend hours setting up integrated farms, roadways and wooden train sets. As long as I was not imposing my ideas, they loved it when I joined them on the floor to help. Some kids love when their parents help make their bedrooms into “forts” (as my brother and I used to do as kids). Parents can be more involved by organizing indoor and outdoor scavenger hunts.

Consider what some of today’s influencers do, as cited by Tiffany: Amy Emmerich, Refinery29 President and Chief Context Officer, wrote that for her first Tech Shabbat with young children, “LEGOs and Play-Doh were the star toys for time (five hours) and imagination. We made a ton of Play-Doh food and opened a restaurant, creating menus, and eating and being served in the restaurant.”

Film producer and writer Jenn Lee Smith and her partner, Lund Smith, the Chief Operations Officer of WSJ Properties, have older children: “Saturday morning was spent playing tennis and Ping-Pong, followed by a review

However, this is not a new problem as pointed out by

of schoolwork for the week and quiet reading time. Then lunch with family, then our nine-year-old daughter, Devyn, had two basketball games.”

Shlain adds, “Our youngest, Blooma, who doesn’t remember life before Tech Shabbat, has loved the day from the beginning. At age nine, she told us it was her favorite day because ‘I get to spend more time with my family. We can do arts and crafts, swim, dance, and more. So many kids don’t realize how fun it can be until they start.’” (Page 108)

Next, think about the age at which you give your child a smartphone. Shlain deals with this on pages 108-114. She openly admits that her youngest was the last in