Shut Down to Plug In

Ironically, my husband sent me blog article entitled "Why You Need A Technology Basket At Home."  I was intrigued with the title and found myself in agreement with the suggestion.  (I say it was ironic that my husband sent it to me because he is definitely a gadget guy who is very interested in the newest technology breakthroughs; however, he is level headed enough not to buy everything he sees - thanks, honey!)

Back to the point here....

The technology basket idea is a challenge to families to shut off, unplug, and give up the technology (for at least the time at home that you have with your kids, especially if you are a working parent) that pulls us away from our families in order to plug into the people that really matter: our spouse and our children.

If you are parents of young children and you are also working, there is probably a small window of time each day that you have with your children. Maybe 5:00-8:00? And we all know that those hours are FILLED with to-do's: dinner, bath, clean-up, homework, books, bedtime. Why clog that little window with any more technology, such as email, facebook, twitter, etc? The technology basket asks us to turn off all of this technology for at least that window of time in order to spend time developing some of the most important relationships that we have: our kids and spouse.

If you have older kids, and they  have technology devices (PS2, cell phones, IPods, etc), they participate, too. You can actually have a basket if that would help for a visual (all of the devices go in there during the specified time), or you can just shut everything off and purpose in your family not to use those devices from the time you get home until the time your kids go to bed.

I challenge you to try it. Try it and see how it could change the dynamics of your family. An important aspect about having families is having vision for them. Either the culture determines what our families look like, or we determine what our families look like. Which one will it be for you?