5 Winter Activities That Don’t Involve Screens

A walk in the woods reveals all the hidden delights of nature. Imgorthand/Getty Images

Too much screen time threatens healthy child development, and it’s a danger that children encounter at a younger and younger age. In 1970, kids first interacted with media at the age of 4, on average. Now, that they’re doing it at 4 months.

That means electronics are now casting their ghostly glow even over the cradle, mesmerizing infants who haven’t even learned to walk or talk yet.

Research shows that screen media has raised the likelihood of obesity, behavioral issues, sleep problems, anxiety, and poor academic performance in kids.

None of this is exactly trending news at this point. But even beyond the obvious physical and psychological dangers of too much technology that many of us are aware of now, we should beware of even deeper problems posed by our devices. If they interrupt a child’s assimilation of reality from a young age, they may undermine the child’s ability to know and see objective truth, both now and later in life. A drastic example of this is the “Tetris Effect” or “game transfer phenomena,” a documented psychotic break in which people who spend too much time playing video games begin to experience a blurring between reality and the game.

But it can be subtler than that, as well: a slow distancing from reality through a lack of hands-on experience due to everything being mediated through a screen throughout one’s upbringing.

A child’s development might be compared to a tree, which must be rooted first and foremost in the soil before it can spread upward and outward. The “soil” of human growth and flourishing is raw, direct contact with the physical world, which fosters a habitual and intuitive sense of reality.

“The structuring of learning must follow the order of nature and of the learner from sensible to imaginative to intelligible knowledge,” educator John Senior wrote. He believed that technology usage could interfere with this progression.

Speaking of television, he wrote:

“Its two principal defects are its radical passivity, physical and imaginative, and its distortion of reality. Watching it, we fail to exercise the eye, selecting and focusing on detail–what poets call ‘noticing’ things; neither do we exercise imagination as you must in reading metaphor where you actively leap to the ’third thing' in juxtaposed images, picking out similarities and differences, a skill which Aristotle says is a chief sign of intelligence.”

Mr. Senior is developing wisdom passed down from the time of Aristotle, who said that all knowledge begins with the senses. The healthy training of the senses leads to the healthy training of the emotions and imaginations, which leads to the healthy training of the intellect or mind. But if something comes between us and our contact with reality, especially at those early stages, it can disturb our ability to know objective truth.

While the dangers of device addiction in children are increasingly well-known, the struggle against these addictions remains ever-present and ever-pressing, particularly during this colder time of year, when there are fewer means of keeping kids quiet and occupied.

Here are a few suggestions for winter activities that don’t involve a TV, computer, tablet, phone, or gaming console.

For Healthy Bodies and Lifelong Memories: Go on Winter Walks

There’s a lovely children’s picture book called “Owl Moon” about going “owling” on cold, clear, crystalline winter nights. This book was a favorite in my house when I was growing up, and it revealed to me the compelling mystique of both owls and winter nights, when the moonlight turns all to silver and the trees cast blue shadows on the snow.

There were woods behind our house (which was a log house, and so fit in well with its surroundings). It was a place of mystery and adventure for me, and I can remember the excitement when my sister and I were old enough to explore it on our own. We found the ruins of an old farmhouse or barn concealed within the trees, which seemed like the remnants of an ancient fortress to me.

Sometimes, we would go for a walk in those woods under the frosty stars, which seemed to be coming down around us in the form of snowflakes. We didn’t see any owls, generally, but we heard them.

Such memories are a gift you can give to your children, one far more valuable than the latest Xbox game.

For Problem-Solving and Strategic Thinking: Play Board Games

Board games are an engaging way to keep kids occupied and teach them skills like strategic thinking. Imgorthand/Getty Images

In Wisconsin, where I live, there are some winter nights where it’s simply too cold to go for a nighttime walk. Some days, it’s better to draw near the wood stove or fireplace with a hot drink and listen to the wind complain while you remain safe and warm. If that’s the case in your region, too, you might consider setting up the kids with a number of board games to keep them occupied during the long, dark evenings of this time of year.

Game selection will depend on the age of your children, of course. For very young children, Haba makes some simple, high-quality games that even toddlers can enjoy, such as one called My First Orchard. For older kids, if you want to go beyond the basics of Monopoly and Risk, you could try Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, or Codenames.

For serious teenage gamers looking for behemothic strategy games, there are options such as Clash of Cultures, Axis & Allies, and Civilization.

To Make Them See Home in a New Light: Launch an Indoor Treasure Hunt

A treasure hunt can be as elaborate or as simple as you want (and have time for), and will reliably provide lots of excitement for kids. Of course, the more elaborate the hunt, the longer you can keep them busy.

If you have more time and a creative bent, you could create a backstory, characters, costumes, and complicated clues for the treasure hunt. All this will also engage and stimulate the children’s imaginations, which is a great benefit. If, on the other hand, you want something simple or are working with very young children, you could simply write on a series of slips of paper where the next clue is to be found. There’s nothing for the kids to figure out here, but they will probably still enjoy running from cupboard to closet, on the scent.

An article on The Spruce.com provides some clues that you can use for common household locations.

Naturally, prizes can also vary in complexity, size, and cost, but it seems that some kind of reward ought to await the young adventurers when they reach the end of the trail.

To Develop the Imagination and Public Speaking Abilities: Put on a Play

As with the treasure hunt, a play can be simple or more elaborate, depending on your resources, time, energy, and the age of the children. Younger kids might have a blast just putting together creative costumes from what you have on hand (towels, scarves, old hats, toy accessories) and delivering a few lines in a simple skit. Older children might be able to tackle a full one-act play with planned-out costumes and blocking. Alternatively, challenge them to write their own script; this may end up being the most rewarding part of the whole process for them.

If you have teenagers, encourage them to tackle a scene or two from the master himself, William Shakespeare. I recommend “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as a great starting place.

To Build a Love of Reading and Literature: Listen to Audiobooks

Standing out from among my memories of long northern winter nights is the recollection of listening to “The Lord of the Rings” on audio with my entire family—some of us working on a puzzle, some drawing, some knitting. It was possible to be carried away on an epic adventure, while remaining warm and comfortable in our own living room.

Audiobooks are great for developing in children a love of reading as well as a feel for the rhythm and sound and beauty of language. They foster a love of literature because listening to an audiobook is easier than reading on one’s own and, at the same time, hearing the proper pronunciation of words and proper inflection of sentences teaches kids what sentences should sound like in their own heads when they read on their own and how to read out loud, too.

Beatrix Potter’s books, A.A. Milne’s beloved “Winnie-the-Pooh,” the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander’s “The Chronicles of Prydain” are some great children’s series (most of which you can find on audio) to get you started.

Hopefully, these activities can help you keep screen time in its proper place. And in doing so, you can help your children form a healthy foundation for their minds and imaginations. If the tree of child development has strong, deep roots, gripping the earth, then it can soar heavenward. By analogy, our children’s minds can bloom into the fullness of truth—even abstract truth—if we begin with direct experience of reality, not the mediated experience that technology tries to lure us in with.