How do you manage to be offline around a child?

Going on a digital sabbatical is in fashion these days. I´ve been on extended digital sabbaticals before I knew they existed. But back then, I wasn´t really addicted to the internet yet and so I didn´t need one.

I only installed an internet connection in my house about one year ago. Yes, in May, 2010. And 8 months after that, I left my house to go on a trip, while starting a business online. I went from internet free to internet junky very fast and then I skipped to a more stable and healthy relationship with the cloud.

Before having internet at home, I´d use it on cyber cafes or at friend´s houses. I´d go to a cyber cafe and spend from 30 minutes to two hours connected and then skip a day or two or more.

Then, I had it installed in my room, 24 hours. I was connected to it for 6 hours a day (or more), all of the sudden. I thought that I would be exaggerating just in the beginning, like getting a new toy and then I´d leave it alone, but it didn´t work like that.

I got addicted to internet browsing, reading and watching interesting and useless stuff.

Most of my online hours were when my daughter was at her kindergarten or at a friend´s house, but she had to put up with many occasions in which I was glued to the monitor, unable to do much else, getting impatient because she couldn´t understand my need to be at the computer (a 3-year old…).

I realized I was neglecting some attention to my baby and that had to change.

At home, I started to put my lap top in the closet while I was with her, but it didn´t work very well, I just had to pick it up again and click click click type type type when that urge came.

So I was happy with my new project of travel-work to come. Going on a long trip (initially 7 months, about to be extended) where I don´t have internet at home, and only use it during those less than 4 hours that I have while Luísa is at school.

We spent 3 months without a cell phone (and I finally bought one because people in the 21^st century seems to no go without it to meet each other in the physical world and I needed friends, so the cell phone helped a lot in that). And I do keep my connection to only the mornings (8-12), from Monday to Friday.

So, I´m not on a digital sabbatical as in away from the screen altogether, but I´m in a sort of half digital sabbatical to what´s normal these days, where people have the internet in their pockets available all the time.

This controlled hours on the net (I´m on it for 5 months now) made me more present to my daughter who doesn´t have to put up with my expressionless face while I look at the screen and ignore her needs. She does see me typing sometimes at home, but I put it away as soon as I see this can be a reason for us (mom and daughter) to disconnect.

It also made me more selective to what I do online.

I also go on extreme digital sabbaticals without wanting. My daughter suddenly doesn´t have school of Friday and BAM, there I go on a long weekend without connecting. I´d have preferred it not to happen, but I´m into this life experiment of only working in the mornings and being completely available for Luísa afterwards. It´s going great.

I kind of cheat too. While connected in the morning, I leave a few tabs opened with articles and videos uploaded to view at home. I try doing it after lunch, if Luísa is into some self absorbed play, otherwise I forget about it.

I was already planning on writing about my hours on the internet when I found this request from Gwen Bell for bloggers to write about their digital sabbatical. Find more about what this all mean here.

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