It’s Saturday morning.
Your kids are awake, but they’re already on their phones.
One is watching YouTube. Another is playing a game. Someone is scrolling through TikTok.
You say, “Why don’t you guys go outside?”
The answer?
“Later.”
And somehow, later becomes lunchtime. Then afternoon. Then the entire weekend is almost gone.
Sound familiar?
As parents, it’s easy to focus on the screen. We tell our kids to put their phones down, limit their screen time, or go outside and get some exercise.
But maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way.
Instead of asking, “How do I get my child off their phone?”
Maybe we should ask:
“What can I give them that they actually want to do?”
That’s how we discovered pickleball.
We didn’t expect our kids to suddenly become athletes. We weren’t trying to raise the next sports champion.
We just wanted to try something different.
The first time wasn’t perfect.
There were missed shots. Balls went everywhere. There was plenty of, “I can’t do this!”
But then came one good shot.
“Did you see that?”
Then another.
Then suddenly, there was laughter.
And that’s when something interesting happened.
They weren’t thinking about their phones anymore.
They were thinking about the next shot.
A few sessions later, they started recognizing other kids at the court. Eventually, they were asking when we could play again.
The phone didn’t disappear.
And honestly, it didn’t have to.
There was simply something else competing for their attention.
Something active.
Something social.
Something we could do together.
And perhaps that’s the lesson for parents like us.
We don’t always have to fight screen time. Sometimes, we just need to help our kids discover something worth putting the phone down for.
For our family, that happened to be pickleball.
Maybe it could be for yours, too.
Start small. Find a court. Grab a paddle. Give it an hour.
You never know where that first game might lead.