Alison Dahlman, associate director of educational quality and excellence for the office for the mission of Catholic education, has been helping lead the charge on Reclaiming Sundays videos, an online series helping families in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis reclaim Sundays as the Lord’s Day.
When looking for monthly presenters, Dahlman herself volunteered, along with her husband, Jim, who is the middle school principal of Our Lady of Grace School in Edina. Longstanding educators in the archdiocese, the Dahlmans have a passion for the topic assigned to them: low or no tech on Sundays.
“For some families, it might be really hard to think about, well, how do we pray together as a family? Others have that down. So maybe for other families, it’s hard to imagine, how would I spend the day without my phone? So, (we’re) touching upon a lot of different areas of life that impact family existence a great deal. We hope (the series) has been really beneficial,” Alison Dahlman said.
For a “Practicing Catholic” episode that debuts at 7 p.m. May 1 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, Alison Dahlman told co-hosts Leah Heselton and Father Tom Margevicius that she and her husband are passionate about reclaiming Sundays because of their experience with education.
“When it comes to low tech Sundays, it was quite natural for us to talk about,” Jim Dahlman said. “We try to be low tech in general with our children, because we’ve seen in our work in education with the students, and just the impact that technology and screen time has on (their) development. … It’s a priority in our family to try to limit it as much as we can — not completely screen free, but at appropriate doses.”
Alison Dahlman said that it is important to her and her husband that they are the authority figures their children can turn to rather than Google or AI.
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“I think it goes back to just honoring what the (Lord’s) day is for,” Jim Dahlman said. “It’s a day for the Lord. … We usually go to the vigil Mass on Saturday nights, so then it makes our Sunday mornings very relaxed and very focused on what we can do to support the family. By not having those screens, or (by) really limiting how much our children are interacting with screens, it forces us to do things together whether it’s playing outside, going for walks, playing board games together.”
He said the Dahlman family is blessed to have a parish community at St. Peter in North St. Paul that shares their values, especially with screen time and technology use.
As an example, the Dahlmans have encouraged their children, in their birthday months, to invite the family of a friend over to the Dahlmans’ house.
“We actually took that idea from another family at St. Peter, where we’re parishioners, and it’s been a really good blessing,” Jim Dahlman said.
“Now’s a moment where all parents of young children are really grappling with this question of screens, personal devices, and so we’re trying in our small way to invite others into this,” Alison Dahlman said.
To hear more from Jim and Alison Dahlman about how their family reclaims Sunday as the Lord’s Day, listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. May 2 and 2 p.m. May 3.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest episode also featured Bishop Kevin Kenney in an interview about the archdiocese hosting the Madre Peregrina (or Pilgrim Mother) statue depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe and what it means for the local Church.
Listen to interviews after they have aired at practicingcatholicshow.com or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
