Our Family Reading-Together Plan
The child has entered adolescence, and it is increasingly hard to manage him by authority as when he was little. Recently the child has shown signs of being addicted to online games. I hope to help him stay away from the internet by improving the family environment while setting appropriate limits for him. In an age when the internet prevails, it is even hard for me to reach agreement with the child's mother on many issues about the internet—because she too is controlled by the internet. But if some issues are not agreed upon among family members, it is hard to form a good atmosphere; without a good atmosphere, the problem ultimately cannot be solved.
In the end I came up with a solution: to create a family reading-together plan. For the problems we hope to solve right now, I find one or two authoritative books that are easy to read, give one copy to each person, and every day everyone sets aside 15–30 minutes to read the same book together, reaching a consensus through reading.
The problem I most want to solve right now is our family's overuse of electronic devices. Of course, this so-called "overuse" is my judgment as a professional physician; compared with many families, the time our family spends on electronic devices may already be quite little.
But my professional experience tells me that electronic devices are causing great harm to people's physical and mental health and to their intellectual development, and my son is in the relatively sensitive adolescent period; influenced by his environment, he inevitably has a tendency to be infatuated with online games and electronic devices.
I hope he has a better life, so I am doing my best to improve the family atmosphere for him, restraining my own time on electronic devices, persuading his mother to reduce her use, and also limiting the kinds and time the child may spend on electronic devices.
This may be a very difficult thing to do in today's social environment. Whether I take the subway or the bus, or even stroll in a park, I see large numbers of people staring down at their phones. On the subway, more than 90% of people are clutching their phones; walking on the road, many middle-school students ride shared bikes while playing on their phones. Even the monks and nuns in the several temples I have visited are controlled by various handheld electronic devices.
We live in an era in which electronic products have controlled almost all of humanity. To keep one's distance from electronic products in such an era requires strong willpower. To have the whole family keep their distance requires not only strong willpower but also a strong ability to "order the family."
As the mainstay of the family, to achieve this goal, a little authoritarianism is unavoidable. But relying on authoritarianism alone will never solve the problem. To truly get everyone to calmly accept my advice and break free of dependence on electronic devices, the family still needs to reach a consensus on this issue.
So I picked out two books in the bookstore that I thought would help break dependence on electronic devices: one is 28 Days to a More Intentional Family—An Authoritative, Safe, and Effective Screen-Free Plan (by Victoria L. Dunckley), and the other is Atomic Habits: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.
The former was written by the American psychiatrist Victoria L. Dunckley; her work mainly introduces the harm electronic products do to people's physical and mental health and some methods for giving up electronics. The latter was written by James Clear, a well-known American "habits" expert and blogger who has provided training in building good habits and breaking bad ones for many well-known American companies.
I have read both books and agree with most of the views in them. I am having my family read these two books together with me. I hope they will gain something after reading the works of these two influential American experts, and ultimately reach a consensus with me on giving up electronic devices.
I myself have basically already brought my dependence on electronic products under control, and the internet plays an ever-smaller role in my life. Apart from WeChat for work and my own blog and official account, I basically no longer pay attention to anything else online.
We cannot completely insulate ourselves from the internet and electronic devices, but we can manage to have only the minimum necessary contact with them; this is the ideal state I hope to reach. I do not want myself, nor my family members, to be controlled by the internet and electronic devices and become their slaves.
I can hardly sway my family's will by a forceful attitude, so I can only rely on this kind of family reading-together plan to form some basic consensus. I am willing to share this experience of mine for the reference of families with the same troubles.