The first time I took away the iPad. What happened next.

The next twenty minutes were not good. There was protest, initially verbal and then retreating into silence, which is in some ways harder. I went back to what I was doing. He went to his room. I could hear him moving around up there, the particular sound of someone who is not doing anything specific because they are still in the aftermath of something.

And then, after about twenty minutes, the sound changed. Something was happening. I couldn't tell what. I didn't go up to check. I waited.

He came down forty minutes later with a drawing. Not of anything specific — it was abstract, something with patterns. He showed it to me without saying anything. I looked at it and said: this is really good. He nodded and went back upstairs.

The drawing is still on the fridge. Not because I put it there as a lesson or a reminder — he put it there. Which is its own kind of information. Children know, on some level, which of the things they make are the things that matter to them. The drawing from the iPad afternoon is on the fridge. The things made on screens are not anywhere. It is still on the fridge.