Why We Quit Tablets (For Now)

Fashion

Feb 26

Los Angeles mom and style blogger, Relish x Arielle shares family updates

We blinked and 2023 is starting to fly by. Somehow, it’s almost March. Work has never been busier, and between school and extracurricular activities, life with Naiya and Sadie has been truly non-stop. This mama can barely keep up. We finally came up for enough air to snap some family photos (and mini miracle: almost everyone was looking at the camera).

Naiya and Sadie are loving school this year. Naiya is learning how to read in Kindergarten and we’re creating so many core memories practicing sounding out words and reading together. Somehow the word “me” was “mairn” for a couple weeks but we live and we learn. Sadie isn’t far behind Naiya—she so badly wants to learn how to read too.

No Tablets Allowed (For Now…)

I’ve seen a big difference in Naiya and Sadie’s interest in reading since Phil and I decided to take away their tablets back in December 2022. While I’m not anti-tablet by any means, Phil and I decided we were using it as a crutch too much after the height of the Pandemic and beyond, and we wanted to make a change. We noticed our girls were relying on YouTube for entertainment and they were zoning out, watching their favorite shows instead of doing as much creative play. It didn’t help that they had learned the passwords to their tablets so they could find them almost anytime and break in themselves.

Now, we watch a ton of movies together, we plan more playdates, we’re doing more craft projects than ever before, we’re filling our days exploring new parks around Los Angeles, and I’m so proud of where we’ve landed. I’m thinking we’ll pull tablets back out for long flights and we’ll play this era by ear. At some point, we may re-introduce them with more of a specific time limit but I’m loving this no-tablet era so much, I’m hoping that time doesn’t come for a while.