@Paul Garfield holy crap

Realistically less. This is more advice to everyone than a look at me thing. At the beginning of 2024 we got rid of screen time for our kids to see what happened. It turned into selling my tv and turning the coach around to face the family room so that our family would be our entertainment. Then we noticed we wanted to talk more in our marriage instead of watch something every night so we canceled all our subscriptions. When football season rolled around I had already thought about it and I knew how I got obsessing over it during season so I decided to forego getting youtubetv for football. And I gotta say it’s not for everyone but it’s a big reason my marriage has gotten so much better and I play more with my kids.

@Jared Harris we started because we were noticing the way the kids acted when tv time was over or when they would ask to use the TV and we would say no, and they would lose their minds. I was having an issue with doom scrolling on social media as well, and I know the effects on the mind and emotions and spirit when too much screen time is present so Ali and I together decided we would not have any TV for a month and see what happened. The results were incredible. Don’t get me wrong. The first week of them asking incessantly was hard but after that they quit asking and they just kind of knew we don’t watch TV anymore. After that, Ali and I noticed that we needed to set an example because we would tell the kids all day long no and then if they got out of bed and came out and we were watching a show, it was pretty hypocritical so I listed our TV and our TV stand that night and sold it the next day and we canceled our subscriptions and kind of never looked back. Our nightly conversations have become deep and intimate, and I still don’t even like when we every once in a while will go somewhere to watch a movie or a football game at someone’s house. It almost always opens up a conversation when we get home to why we don’t have TV and some whining. But nonetheless, I don’t foresee having a TV in her house ever again that might be extreme for some that’s just what we decided we wanted. I know Christmas time is gonna pose some issues because we have some traditions and some movies we like to watch we will probably still try and find a way to make those happen. Oh yeah, and not long after we sold the TV my wife and I got rid of social media that wasn’t even bigger in our marriage than the TV thing. We have slowly set some boundaries and limits and will use Facebook a little bit for marketplace or a couple minutes to see what friends and family are doing. And Ali has a 30 minute time limit every day that she works on her business on social media, but outside of that we never have phones when we are together they go on the charger unless it’s a predetermined conversation and we need to use our phone for something. It took a lot to get where we are at, but I look at where we were at before and how much time I was looking at my phone or we were watching something and now I can fill all that time with Building my relationship relationships with them or working on projects around the house or actually reading all the books that I’ve bought over the years and read the first few pages, but never finished.

Call me crazy but leaving the 4 runner for the van was the best thing we ever did