Oh boy I am guilty as charged...my kid is plugged into the internet and itunes and iphone too much. The use of electronics for downtime has been creeping in slowly but surely this winter. I began to notice that she wasn't really getting a mental break after her homework so I suggested that she unplug for the night. The results were good. She played piano, played with the cat, read a book, and talked to us about her day, her ideas, a funny concept she had been thinking about. She decompressed and we had family time, hanging around time- that amorphous slice of time during the week between dinner and bedtime that can get lost in the shuffle of the busy day.
We are going to keep this up...I set the deck of cards on the table. Maybe we can play a game tonight.