Ages 5-15 · Bennett County, SD county · Book 4, Discernment

Sleep and Screens — Bennett County, SD

Taking the device away teaches a child to be better at hiding the device. Bennett County is one of 66 counties in South Dakota. Teaching them to notice what it does to them is a different project entirely.

The last input of the day gets a whole session, because it is the one that runs all night.

The book behind it

Ellis Abel and the Two Wolves Within

“Choose what you feed within.”

Notice what shapes your inner world.
Awareness makes choice possible.
Feed the thoughts that strengthen you.

Ellis Abel is a character series. Volume 4 carries the value discernment, and the story does the teaching. There is no doctrine in it and nothing for a family to opt out of, which is why it runs in Bennett County, SD in public schools, libraries, clubs and living rooms without changing a word.

Read about Ellis Abel and the Two Wolves Within · The whole series

Five sessions in Bennett County

Session 1
Pick the one moment in the day that goes wrong most often
Session 2
Read the story and name what is actually happening in it
Session 3
Write the routine down in three steps a child can say back
Session 4
Run it for a week without changing it, even on the bad days
Session 5
Come back to it and let the child say what got easier

What Bennett County, SD leaders ask first

Is sleep and screens in Bennett County, SD a religious program?

No. Ellis Abel is a character series. Each volume carries one named core value — this one is discernment — and the story does the teaching. There is no doctrine in it, nothing to opt out of, and it is used in public schools, libraries and secular programs as readily as anywhere else.

What ages does this work for?

Ages 5-15. The story is read aloud, so a child who cannot read yet is fully in it, and the discussion prompts are written in two bands so one adult can hold a mixed-age room.

We have tried things like this in Bennett County, SD before and stopped. Why is this different?

Because it is ten minutes and it survives a missed night. There is no streak to break and nothing to catch up on — you pick up at the next chapter.

What if my child will not talk about it?

Then read it anyway and say nothing. Children answer days later, in the car, about something else entirely. The prompts are there when they are ready, not a toll you have to pay to finish the book.

How a session actually runs in Bennett County

Step 1
Two voices, named out loud
The story gives a child a way to talk about their own inner argument without having to admit anything embarrassing. Children in Bennett County, SD will describe the harsh voice in detail once it belongs to a story rather than to them.
Step 2
List what actually went in today
Not a lecture about screen time. An honest inventory of one real day — watched, scrolled, played, heard, said, and said to themselves — written down by the child, with the adults doing their own list at the same time.
Step 3
One question, good on any platform
Who made this, and what do they want from me. It works on a video, an ad, a group chat, a game's shop and a chatbot, and it will still work on whatever replaces all of them. That transferability is the point of teaching a question rather than a rule.
Step 4
Change one input, and say which
One thing, chosen by the child, changed before the next session. Not a screen-time limit imposed from above — those are complied with rather than learned. Then come back and ask what changed, without grading the answer.