All posts by Genevieve

Digital detox

Mind, , , , ,

Chairs next to the swimming pool in the forrest at Apa Villas, I

Recently I went through a period that was rather stressful and even though I am consciously trying to be mindful and to de-stress, it seemed like all of my efforts weren’t quite working. Reading Arianne Huffington’s “Thrive” also got me thinking: Am I letting my digital life take over my real one?

I decided to re-examine my routine.

I get up in the morning. I check Facebook. I take my phone up to the balcony and do a yoga session with my yoga app. I sit down at the table for Breakfast, and read the BBC news on my phone. I shower, take the metro to work, and check my Facebook on the train (just quickly). Most of the day at the office is spent in meetings, or trying to stay on top of the pile of e-mail that floods in every day. At the end of the day I walk to the train station, check the Herald News in the train, and return home.

We have dinner together as a family, a well-established routine that we decided long ago is an ipad and phone free zone. The TV is also turned off.

After dinner my son and I spend some time together, and I put him to bed. After dinner I tend to check the Times of India News and de Telegraaf (the joy of having lived around the world is that I still like to follow what is happening in New Zealand, India and Holland, plus the global news). I don’t watch very much TV, occasionally a sports game on TV, but otherwise I would rather read a book or the news, or play Candy Crush.

So I took a digital break

When I examined my schedule I saw a lot of checking of apps on my phone, but it just seemed to fit right into my day and I rationalized that I was hardly watching any TV, so what was the harm.

My trip away to Bali was a great opportunity for a digital detox and to really re-examine what I was doing. For the whole week I did not connect my phone to the internet, and I didn’t take my ipad with me at all. No more reading the news, no checking Facebook, and no more Candy Crush.

It was such a relief! And while now that I am back as home I have reconnected my phone to the internet and started reading the news and checking Facebook again, I have decided to make a few adjustments.

1) The phone sleeps in the lounge

I think my favorite tip from Arianne Huffington was that the phone should not sleep next to the bed. With family living around the world, I have got into the habit of it sleeping on the nightstand. Then I would be able to pick it up if there was an emergency. But the truth is, that in the 12 years I have lived away from home, my parents have never needed to contact me in the middle of the night. They have, however, broken my sleep with a skype message to say that they are going on holiday or some other short message that was sent in their day time and my night time, but that they never expected me to see or reply to at night.

The phone sleeping in the lounge also makes sure that checking my email and Facebook is no longer the first thing I do in the morning.

2) No checking Facebook before yoga

In order to turn yoga from a purely physical to more of a meditative experience, I decided that I needed to continue following what I did in Bali and that was to wake up, drink water, and do yoga before looking at my phone, before breakfast, and before the day really started. If I already have Facebook images and words in my head before I practice yoga, I can’t fully focus on my breathing, the poses and the relaxation of the meditative pose to start and end the practice.

3) Enjoy breakfast not news at the breakfast table

Breakfast is the one meal of the day that it is guaranteed that all three of us will make together. I am good at mornings, but I am less good at finishing work on time to guarantee making dinner. I’ve decided that just like at dinner, phones and Ipad’s shouldn’t have a place at the breakfast table either.

4) Turn email off in the weekend

There is something alluring about seeing the number of emails that you have waiting for you in your work inbox climbing. It is hypnotic, powerful, ever present, and demands attention. So on the advice of a dear colleague, I decided to go into the settings of my phone and turn it off in the weekend. It might demand my attention during work hours, but I don’t want it interrupting my weekends anymore. Immediately I reclaimed my weekends as my own. There was a clear breaking moment between the work week and the weekend – that moment when I flicked the virtual switch on my email on my phone.

5) Take the News Apps off my phone

I have a phone and an Ipad. The more apps I have on my phone, the more that I check them when I am waiting somewhere, and the less I use those moments to look around me, be mindful, and engage in where I am. So I decided to take them all off. I still have Facebook on my phone (so I can post photos), but I took all the News Apps off.

If I want to read the newspaper, then I have to get my Ipad (which is anyway a bigger screen and therefore better for my eyes), and that makes it more of a conscious decision rather than an automatic process to read the news. It has already meant that I have cut down on the amount of time that I am spending reading the news, and that also means I am cutting down on the amount of time per day that I am exposed to all the negative news that fills the papers.

I am trying, and failing, and getting back up again

This list was my resolution when I returned from Bali, and some of them I have been able to stick to consistently – the phone sleeps in the lounge, I don’t have any news apps on my phone, and the email is always turned off at the weekend. But some things I notice myself doing, beat myself up about, and try to improve again – like checking Facebook as I walk up the stairs to the roof terrace for my yoga session. I never promised to be perfect, but I am trying little by little to re-balance my life and de-stress.

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Traveling with kids, 2-5 years

Escape, , , , ,

Liam playing football at Phanom Rung Historical park, Khymer rui

Let me start by being honest. We have ended up traveling far more with our son than we ever expected to, and we have taken him to far more “adventurous” places than we had ever expected to before he was born. My husband and I met traveling, and it is something that we enjoy doing together. But there were trips that we thought we should do before we had children – like going to India.

When we moved to India when Liam was 2 ½ years old, we blew that perception out of the water. As a result, living in India changed our boundaries of what we were prepared to do with him. Each trip got us more creative and taught us more about how to do it so that he also enjoyed it, and it was safe for him as well. As a result Liam can now write a list of the 21 countries that he has visited, and we keep planning the next vacation.

So let’s get traveling – these are our top 10 tips for traveling with a 2-5 year old.

1) Travel light

Traveling with a 2-5 year old is a handful. Possibly even more so than when they are younger. The more active they get, the more that they want to run at the airport, explore at the hotel reception desk, and find out what is going on just around that corner where you can’t see them anymore.

Traveling light means that you can divide and conquer – one of you looks after the luggage, and checking in at the airport and hotel, while the other keeps the kid(s) entertained. Consider critically what you can leave behind to get it down to 2 bags – one for each hand. I leave it up to you how big those 2 bags are, but for us they are 2 cabin bags (55cm) – one for him, and one for us that we share for a trip of up to 2 weeks.

2) Pack a selection of small toys

Packing light means getting creative on what toys to take with you, and which ones to leave behind. We have a small zip up black bag (about A4 in size) that Liam is allowed to pack on his own. We encourage him to fill it with cards, matchbox toys, and puzzles (which we take out of the boxes and pack in zip lock sandwich bags).

Next to his special pouch of toys we have an A5 size bag which holds a couple of colouring books, paper and crayons or felt tip pens for him to draw with. Taking drawing materials is really versatile, because he can use it in the plane, a restaurant, or a hotel room. We also take a small football (15cm diameter) everywhere that we travel too. It is amazing how many hours a ball can fill at a hotel, and how little grass it takes to create a game.

Maybe this is a little controversial, but he also has an IPad with games on it to play with. We try to limit its use to 30 minutes per day, but on travel days – when he is in a plane or a long car ride – we are a little less strict in how long he is allowed to play on it.

3) Take books for take-off and landing

Whether you agree with taking an iPad or not, there is one time it absolutely can’t be used – and that is the 30 minutes each side of take-off and landing. We always have a selection of 10 small books with us (Thomas the Tank Engine) that we can read to him while we are taking off and landing. He can choose which one gets read next, and it keeps both of us distracted for the first hour of the flight.

4) Explain to your child where you are going and what is special about it

Lots of people are amazed at the places that we have traveled to with Liam, and I admit, trips around India, Nepal and Oman were not what we were expecting to do with a child. However, they were all possible and safe, and enjoyable for him and us, and he has the most amazing understanding of Geography as a result.

But he hasn’t enjoyed the trips and learned this on his own. We have made a conscious decision to use our travels as a way to teach him about the world. We tell him where he is going, we show it to him on a map, we explain to him what is special about where he is going, and why he is so lucky to be able to go there. As a result he excitedly talks about trips he has taken to Mumbai and Dubai long after the trip instead of complaining that he didn’t get to go to the pool or the beach like the other kids in his class.

It doesn’t matter whether your next trip is as exotic as Mumbai or Dubai or not, the idea is just that you talk to them about how lucky they are to get to travel with you, what they are going to get to see, and how that is special for them.

5) Let them know what is in it for them

Kids (at least our one) are amazing little negotiators. They can bargain and blackmail us from the time that they can talk. With Liam we make deals. Each day he will join us to do things that we want to do, and then we will do one thing that he wants to do. It goes a bit like this “Yes, you can play in the pool this afternoon, but first we are going to go and see X, Y and Z in the city. We will be back for your swimming by 4pm.” Or “Today we are going to see X, Y, and Z, we found a great park in between where you can play with your ball after lunch before we go from Y to Z.”

6) Get a collapsible stroller

Our first trips were done with a big stroller that was difficult to check in, and even more difficult if we had to take a taxi somewhere. That was something we were prepared to manage in the 0-2 age group, but after his second birthday we traded it in for a smaller model. We bought a