The Most Screen-Heavy Fortnight of the Year: A Parent's Plan for Winter Break

Children aged five to eight in the US average almost three and a half hours a day on screens. Children aged eight to twelve average about five and a half hours of screen entertainment a day, not counting schoolwork.

Those are term-time figures, from Common Sense Media's census research. They include six or seven hours a day of school.

Now take school away. Make it dark by half five. Put a brand new tablet or console under the tree on the 25th, and fill the house with adults who are cooking, hosting and quite reasonably not paying close attention.

Most parents know by about the 28th how that goes.

This is not a guide to going screen-free over the holidays. That does not work, and nobody enjoys trying. It is a plan for keeping the fortnight from disappearing into a screen, without spending all of it arguing.

Table of Contents

Why these two weeks are different

Ordinary weeks have a shape. School, then after-school, then dinner, then bed. Screen time fits into the gaps.

Winter break removes the shape entirely. There are no gaps, because the whole day is a gap. Add the novelty of a new device, the short daylight, and parents who are busier than usual, and screen use does not creep up so much as flood.

The practical conclusion is that the fix is structure, not willpower. You are not trying to limit screens. You are trying to put a shape back into the day so that screens go back to filling gaps.

Set the rules before the 25th

This is the most useful single thing in this guide.

Rules announced before a new device is unwrapped are expectations. Rules announced on the 27th, after three days of unrestricted use, are a confiscation. The rule can be identical and the reaction will be completely different.

So decide in December. When the new device can be used, where, and what happens at mealtimes and bedtime. Tell the children before Christmas, and if the device is a surprise, put the rules in with it.

Anchor the day rather than counting minutes

Counting minutes is exhausting over a fortnight, and it turns every half hour into a debate about whether the timer has started.

A simpler approach is to fix the anchors of the day and let screens fit around them. Outdoors every morning. No screens at meals. Nothing in the hour before bed. Beyond that, a looser attitude is fine.

This reflects the way paediatric guidance has been moving too, with more emphasis on what children are doing on screens and when, rather than a strict hourly limit. Twenty minutes of a video call with a grandparent and three hours of short-form video are not the same thing.

Put the outdoor time first

In Atlanta this is easier than people expect. Daytime highs over the break usually sit somewhere in the fifties, which is entirely comfortable for an active child in layers.

Mornings out, screens after, works for two reasons. Children who have been outside for a couple of hours are genuinely less interested in a screen afterwards. And the order means the outdoor time actually happens, rather than being perpetually promised for after this episode.

It does not need to be an outing. A walk, a park, the garden, a bike ride round the block. The point is to get the day started somewhere other than the sofa.

Swap rather than subtract

Taking a screen away leaves a hole, and a bored child in a hole will argue until the screen comes back.

Having the replacement ready makes a real difference. A new board game opened on Boxing Day. A jigsaw left out on a table. A building set. Something from the craft cupboard that has not been seen since last year. The trick is to have it within reach at the exact moment the screen goes off, rather than suggesting it afterwards.

Plan two or three big days

Not every day needs an outing, and trying to fill all fourteen is expensive and exhausting.

Two or three anchor days across the fortnight is enough to break it up. A morning at a rink, a trip to a museum, an evening at the lights. Days with something in them make the lazy days in between feel like a rest rather than drift.

Our guide to winter break activities in Atlanta has a list of ideas, including which ones stay open in the week between Christmas and New Year.

Use the working days for structure

For working families, the fortnight usually contains a few days where the school is shut and the office is not. In metro Atlanta that is typically the handful of working days between school closing on Friday 18 December and Christmas, plus the teacher workday on Monday 4 January. Our guide to when winter break falls in Georgia has the district-by-district dates.

Those are the days most likely to become entirely screen-based by default, because nobody is free to do anything else. They are also the easiest days to give a completely different shape. A full day outdoors, with other children, and no screens in it, resets the pattern for the days around it. It is one of the reasons our winter break camp runs during both winter closures, and why we make the case that winter is a genuinely good season to be outside in Georgia.

Look at your own phone

The unwelcome one. Children notice adult screen use far more than adults do, and a rule about the tablet at dinner does not survive a parent checking email at the table.

Nobody needs to be perfect about it. But it is worth being consistent about the handful of rules that apply to everyone, particularly meals.

Taper before school goes back

Students in the major metro districts return on Tuesday 5 January. Going straight from a fortnight of late nights and heavy screen use into a 7am alarm is hard on everyone.

Start pulling bedtime and screens back towards term-time routines around New Year, so the first week back is not also the first week of adjusting. Children who start term already in the routine have a much better January.

Keeping the fortnight theirs

Winter break is supposed to be a break, and some lazy days in front of a film are part of that. The aim is not to eliminate screens. It is to make sure the two weeks have enough in them that children remember more than what they watched.

Questions? Drop us a note at Hey@JoshPowellCamp.com or call (678) 369-0780. We pick up the phone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How much screen time is too much over winter break?

  There is no single number that applies to every child. Paediatric guidance has increasingly emphasised the type of content and when screens are used over a strict daily limit. A more useful test over the holidays is whether screens are displacing things that matter: sleep, time outside, meals together and time with other people. If those are intact, the exact number of minutes matters much less.

• Should I let my child use a new device all day on Christmas Day?

  Many families decide Christmas Day is an exception, and that is a reasonable choice. The key is to say so in advance, so that the 26th is not a surprise. Agreeing that the device is unrestricted on the day and back to the usual rules from the next morning works far better than trying to introduce limits on the day itself.

• What can kids do instead of screens when it is cold outside?

  In metro Atlanta it is rarely too cold to go out with the right layers, so outdoor time is usually still possible. Indoors, the most effective alternatives are ones that are already set up and within reach: board games, jigsaws, building sets and craft materials. Venues such as indoor ice rinks, museums and entertainment centres work for days when the weather genuinely does not cooperate.

• How do I get my child back into a routine after winter break?

  Taper rather than switch. Bring bedtimes and screen use back towards term-time levels over the last few days of the break, ideally from around New Year, so that the first week back at school is not also the first week of adjusting. A normal wake-up time on the last two days of the holiday makes the first school morning far easier.

• Does Josh Powell Camp run during winter break?

  Yes. Josh Powell Camp runs during both of metro Atlanta's winter closures: the working days before Christmas in December, and the Presidents Day break week in February. Camp has been running on the same thirty acre site in Acworth since 1972, which makes it one of the longest-running day camps in the Atlanta area. Counselors are teachers working during their own school breaks, staff are background checked, and bus pickup runs from Atlanta locations so the day starts close to home. Dates and pricing for both sessions are on the winter break camp page.