Balance

Progress will lead to something new, a change ... sounds obvious and has a naturally positive lilt to it. On the face of it and at the time, progress is often positive ... exciting even. Take the invention of the television or the phone ... it’s hard to really image what it must have been like to use them for the very first time. 

Yet if you’re anything like me, you may sometimes wish that they weren’t quite so present in our every day lives. How reliant we have become on these things and how much of our time they fill ... but not that long ago really, people existed without them.

You know I have young children. They love watching TV and I very often love them watching it because it gives me some time to get the tea ready or crack on with a job which needs doing. It’s handy, I won’t deny it. Yet I know that to rely on screen time too much, just isn’t natural or good for them (or me). It’s not just the TV, but the iPad or a games console or a phone or maybe music constantly in their headphones. It’s all artificial even if it’s real people on the screen or singing. Nothing wrong with it at all but there has to be a balance and an acceptance bred into us and our children to be able to stop it ... to change scene, to divert to something else, to escape even.

I’ve seen my children go from being in the middle of creating some amazing lego structure to suddenly standing rooted to the spot, conversation stopped mid flow, just because the TV had been turned on! Talk about halting creativity and social interaction.

If my children are in a woodland setting making dens and climbing trees, they aren’t thinking about wanting to watch TV at all. The environment helps dictate their perspective and desire for creativity, imagination and physical exploration. Likewise if they’re at the beach, they’re not asking to watch Netflix but are chasing the lapping waves or building sandcastles. When in the park, they’re using the play equipment or kicking a ball; even at home if they’re in the lounge having book or puzzle time, they’re engaged and enjoying themselves without the TV being on which is in the same room ... you get the picture. 

So a variety is good ... accessing the physical; our emotions; the imagination; the creative mind; the psychological and the social interaction element, are all vital for balanced growth. Exposure to these things means that screen time can have it’s place but can also know it’s place ... it does not dominate or take away from the real, tangible natural world around us and the real, wonderful other people in it!

As adults we’re often more guilty than the children. We may not have time to sit and watch a lot of TV, but we scroll and scroll, stuck to our phones like barnacles on the back of a humpback whale, even taking them to bed with us because of course it must be the last thing we look at and the first thing we look at each day. Bonkers. (I’m guilty of it). I’d rather look at a tree and hear a bird (I do that too).

So let’s try to get a little more balance in our lives. There is a time for everything ... there is a reason and a season for everything. Read Ecclesiastes 3 ... “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ...” then it lists a lot! It doesn’t include screen time but maybe we should make our own lists but just make sure we keep a correct perspective and a balanced lifestyle, with our aim being to showcase God’s love and add glory to his name ... that should keep us on track.

Ingrid x