Are you ready for “National Turn Off Your TV Week”? Tips for a successful TV-free week.

Could you turn off your television for an entire week? Would you or your family go running into a screaming hysteria without it? May 5 – 11, 2014 is National Turn Off Your TV Week. I tried it a few years ago and documented our tv-free week in the Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone Challenge, but my kids were a lot younger then and easily fooled.

Jump on the bandwagon and try it with us! Next week, we can all commiserate (or rejoice) in breaking the chains of television dependency.

Already scared? Here are a few ideas for activities you might try with your family instead of watching television. Please feel free to add some of your own!

KIDS AWAKE?

Play Games! Any game will do… Go Fish, Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee, Hi Ho Cherry-O. When is the last time you did that?

Go Through Old Photo Albums. OMG, remember that Christmas morning when you were photographed in catastrophic disarray after staying up late to assemble the Barbie Dreamhouse? Or how about when (insert “child” here) was born? Awwwww. Good times.

Read Books. Kids love books, and they’ll think of it as an “extended” nighttime routine (i.e. they are staying up “wicked” late).

Crafts. It’s Earth Week. Pull out stuff from the recycle bin and ask your kids to recreate something new out of something old. Invent stuff (coin containers). Create art (cereal box decoupage). Pull out the glue, markers and foam stickers. Create your own family art gallery using all kinds of different “mediums”. Get your artsy hipster on!

Go To The Library. The local library has TONS of activities and diversions for kids of all ages (you know, just like we used to do in the “olden days”). Don’t have a library card? Get one (PS, it’s free).

Get Outside. Go for a walk around the block or drive to an area that hosts walking paths along the beach or through the woods (aren’t we lucky to live near both?). Nature is an amazing connector for families.

Clean! If your kids aren’t old enough to know that cleaning sucks, get them to help. Kids ? the Swiffer (especially the one that squirts cleaning fluid). They won’t clean as thoroughly as you would, but who really cares.

KIDS GONE TO BED?

Read. Peruse one of the five magazines that you have laying around and never get to. Or how about “the best book ever” that your BFF loaned to you to over a year ago; start it.

Ugh, Chores. Fold laundry. Or clean under your bathroom cabinets. Doesn’t *sound* fun, but guess how much pleasure you’ll get out of looking at the pristine cleanliness of it for months to come? Loads (pun intended).

Exercise. GASP! Not anyone’s favorite activity by a long shot (ok, I’m projecting, it’s not mine), but if you didn’t get it done earlier in the day, there’s no reason you can’t OnDemand a 20-minute workout tonight. It’s either that or midnight snack on the leftovers that you anticipated for lunch tomorrow (PS: bathing suit season is in less than two months!!).

Stuff. What have you been needing to do, wanting to do, but have been lured away by Project Runway or Cougar Town instead? Write in your journal. Clean out your underwear drawer. Do whatever that nagging task is that’s been eating at you for months. Do it. You’ll feel soooo good.

Are you up for the challenge? Sign up here with us! We dare you!