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What is Screen-Free Summer? Easy ways for families to switch off and enjoy more time together

What is Screen-Free Summer? Easy ways for families to switch off and enjoy more time together

Screen-Free Summer is a six-week MadeForMums challenge packed with simple, low-cost ways to help your family put down the devices and enjoy more time together

Happy young family dad, mom and two daughters running and playing with a colorful kite in a meadow in the park, having fun on a warm sunny weekend.

Emily Longman Wall

Published: July 17, 2026 at 5:33 PM

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Looking for simple ways to tempt your family away from their screens this summer? MadeForMums’ Screen-Free Summer is here to help, with six weeks of easy challenges designed to get families playing, creating and spending time together.

What is Screen-Free Summer?

Screens are part of everyday family life – and sometimes they’re extremely useful. Screen-Free Summer isn’t about banning them, feeling guilty or filling every minute of the holidays with elaborate activities. It’s simply an invitation to press pause for a while, try something different and make more time for play, creativity, movement and family fun.

How does Screen-Free Summer work?

A new challenge will be revealed each week, with ideas and inspiration to help you get started. The challenges use everyday materials or places close to home, so you won’t need expensive equipment or a packed-out schedule.

Our six weekly themes are:

Week 1: Mini Nature Detectives
Week 2: Make-It Week
Week 3: Family Adventure
Week 4: Rainy Day Rescue
Week 5: Move More
Week 6: Story & Imagination

We’ll add the full details for each challenge to our Screen-Free Summer hub and share more details on our socials, so make sure you come back each week to discover what's next.

How to take part in Screen-free summer

Open this week’s challenge and read the ideas on the Screen-Free Summer hub.
Adapt it to suit your family – you can keep it quick and simple or make a whole day of it.
Complete the challenge together.
Take the requested photo or video and tag us @madeformums and use #MFMScreenFreeSummer

Every valid entry will go into the draw to win a family activity prize. We’d especially love to see creative ideas, teamwork, screen-free fun and families making memories together.

Do we need to go completely screen-free?

Not at all. This isn’t an all-or-nothing challenge, and there’s no need to count every minute. The aim is to create a few more opportunities to connect, play and explore away from screens. Even one activity or one screen-free hour is a brilliant place to start.

Ready to join us?

Choose a challenge, gather the family and get ready for a summer of creating, discovering and having fun together. We can’t wait to see how you take part.

Pic: Getty

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Authors

Emily Longman WallDigital Content Producer

Emily is the Digital Content Producer at MadeForMums and creates editorial and video content across the brand. She also edits the weekly editorial newsletter, oversees our reviews process and loves creating our craft articles and videos. She specialises predominantly in car seats and pushchairs, and has yet to meet a buggy she couldn’t fold! With a 1st class degree in History, she always researches topics thoroughly to find the best recommendations for parents.