Ok, so we aren’t normally a “no screen time ever” family, but lately I’ve found life to be more live-able for everyone if the kids do not watch TV. I’ve never let them have computer time yet in our home (they might work on computers at school on occasion) and our Wii broke many months ago. We never got it fixed.

In my personal experience, not letting the kids watch TV makes them more creative, makes them actually play with their disgusting over-abundance of toys, and most often makes them go outside.

I’m not saying that creativity and imagination can not exist if your child watches TV, but in my home, it is unfortunately? fortunately? more likely to happen if the TV is OFF.

I am a saver. Paper towel rolls go into a special craft drawer. Boxes of every size pile up in the garage. We have colorful masking tape, scotch tape, scissors, etc- all completely accessible to the kids. And encouragement, lots of it, to do it yourself. Make whatever you want. If you use my kitchen utensils, please put them back when you’re done.

And, no matter how annoyed I am to find my soup ladle in the backyard again, I am sure to tell them the mud stew tasted amazing.

About the author: Stephanie is Mom to three boys & a baby girl in Valparaiso, IN and blogs daily at Adventures In Babywearing . Follow her on Twitter- she’s babysteph .