HOLIDAYS: RAISING READERS NOT ENDLESS SCROLLERS

There was a time when waiting was unavoidable.

You waited in the doctor's office with nothing but old magazines. You waited for a bus, watching people come and go. You sat through a power outage making up stories with your siblings, because there was little else to do.

In those quiet moments, curiosity had room to breathe.

Today, waiting lasts about three seconds. A phone appears, a video starts, another follows and half an hour disappears before anyone notices.

Children are growing up with more information than any generation before them, yet less patience for it. They can swipe through hundreds of short videos in an afternoon, but ask them to sit with a good book for twenty minutes, and it can feel like punishment.

The problem is not that screens exist. The problem is they rarely know when to stop.

Holidays make this worse. Without school routines, devices quietly become the default. One episode becomes five. One game swallows an afternoon. At first, everyone is happy,😊 the house is quiet, no one is arguing, parents finally get a moment to breathe. 

A child absorbed in a screen is not necessarily learning. Sometimes they are, there are wonderful documentaries, language apps, and creative tools out there. Technology can open real doors when it's used with intention. But most digital platforms are not built to educate us; they are built to keep us there. The longer we stay, the more successful they become. That alone should give every parent pause.

A book does not flash colours or play music to hold attention, and it does not queue up the next chapter automatically. It asks children to slow down, picture scenes, wrestle with ideas, and meet characters halfway. Books don't just inform, they build patience, and patience is becoming a rare skill.

Paul encouraged believers to dwell on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, and lovely (Philippians 4:8). He was not talking about smartphones, but the principle holds: whatever consistently occupies our minds gradually shapes them. If our children's thoughts are constantly interrupted by noise, where will they learn quiet reflection? If every spare minute belongs to a screen, when will imagination find its voice?

The answer is not banning technology. It's being more intentional with it.

Imagine a holiday where books become part of the rhythm of home again, not as punishment or homework, but as pleasure. Read a chapter together after dinner. Visit a library or bookshop just to browse. Let children choose books that genuinely interest them: dinosaurs, football, biographies, mysteries, African folktales, whatever pulls them in. Ask questions with no single right answer: What would you have done? Why do you think she made that choice? What if the story had ended differently? Conversations like these build something deeper than literacy, they build thinking. And thinking children become discerning adults.

It's also worth remembering that children rarely imitate what we tell them to enjoy. They imitate what they see us enjoying. If every evening they find us scrolling through our own phones, our lectures about reading will sound hollow. Perhaps the greatest invitation to read is not buying another book, it's letting our children catch us reading one.

Years from now, they won't remember most of what they watched this holiday; those clips will disappear into the endless river of online content. But they may remember sitting beside you, laughing at a funny story. They may remember asking for "just one more chapter" before bedtime. They may remember the book that made them think, or dream, or changed the direction of their life.

Screens are excellent servants. They make terrible masters.

A Thoughtful Challenge Pick one evening this week for a family pause. Put every screen aside for an hour or more. Read something together, a Bible passage, a storybook, a biography, or an article that sparks conversation. Afterward, ask just one question: What caught your attention? You may find the richest conversations begin when the screens finally go dark.