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My rule: online connection needs to foster offline connection. So if my kids want to borrow my phone to FaceTime their grandma, I say yes! If my daughter wants to look up a craft idea together for a gift. Sure! If they want to dance to The Trolls soundtrack with their friends? Just hit play.
As for other screens, we usually find plenty to do otherwise, so we save TV And movies for sick days or really special occasions. :)
Love this. We keep screen time really firm as well, but I hesitate to state any black and white rules. There are some great gifts tech can give kids (and of course, a lot of distraction!). We take a similar approach. The kids don’t have iPads and certainly not phones, and I like to narrate what I’m doing if I use my phone or computer in front of them (for example, “I need to answer this message from Aunt Jenny to see if she needs us to watch your cousin this afternoon.”) And we love using my computer to call faraway family!
We only allow video games on weekends and a bit of tv in the morning when they are waking up. Movie nights and other days of course, but I would for sure them rather be doing anything else. :).
To be honest, I’m more for screen time than my wife. I completely agree I watched WAY too much TV as a kid, BUT at the same time I spent hours playing outdoors with friends as TV characters we thought were “cool.”
ANNNNNND there are so many amazing learning apps on the iPad! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel, saying “Go on your iPad to learn today” is teaching. But I do feel using it as a tool while teaching with them, it’s like nothing we ever had access to…in a great way!
Man, I hope that all doesn’t come across as being a parent that just passes a device to our kids at a dinner table! :)
We are a military family and love using the phone for communication! When Dad is gone on trips or deployments, it’s so nice to be able to open up Christmas presents via FaceTime. At the same time, I find myself some days leaning on screens as a distraction to help get things done. It’s really challenged me to figure out other ways to help our toddler cope. For example, instead of watching videos of Dad every single evening before bed or naptime, we made a photo album and read a deployment book. Or if I find myself wanting to put him in front of a movie to cook dinner- I try to incorporate him by helping me. It’s been such an interesting transition for us!
We are striving towards cutting out as much screen time as we can in order to treasure the family time we are able to have together. We do have a tradition of watching a movie once a week on Friday nights! We really look forward to it- we cook dinner together, make popcorn and snuggle on an air mattress/blanket fort.
It sounds like you’re working toward such a great balance in your family, Ashley! Admire your commitment to figuring out what’s best for your unique scenario! And thank you so, so much for your service. I know it’s a sacrifice for you and your husband both. :)
In the winter tv takes place of a lot of outdoor play in my home. Where we live the sun is only up for 3-5 hours a day from December to February, and it’s usually -40°C before windchill. However in the summer the sun is up 24/7 so we don’t have much screen time, only on stormy or sick days, and spend a lot of time outside instead. It’s all about balance here.
Our screen time limit came less out of worry about disconnection and more from noticing that our preschooler had more meltdowns when he was allowed to watch more shows. Even GOOD shows, GENTLE shows. Mr. Rogers, Daniel Tiger, Winnie the Pooh etc.
He wasn’t even melting down about the shows themselves; he’d walk away from the screen on his own when the show was over. But for an hour or two after that, he would be on edge. So now our screen rule is that he’s allowed one 20ish minute show after his rest time, while I nurse the baby in the afternoon. And only if he remembers to ask for it himself. I won’t interrupt his tower building or coloring to offer a show.
This rule goes out the window if he’s sick, and then he gets a full 90 minute Winnie the Pooh or Disney Robin Hood — or BOTH — while absentmindedly sipping fluids and eating clementines. He still melts down when it’s over, but at least he’s hydrated.
BY THE WAY, if you think, “Oh, I remember liking Robin Hood, it’s all cute animals, I can get some chores done while he watches this,” maybe you, like me, have totally forgotten the plot of this movie. My kid got obsessed with it when we all had the flu this winter. I got to field questions about gallows, and taxes, and why some people like taxes and some people don’t, and now he shouts “DEATH TO TYRANTS” sometimes. A pox on the phony king of England!
Erin here; and we can totally relate, Alyssa! I remember a similar response in our own house when my oldest was a toddler, and TV is no longer part of our daily rhythm for much of that same reason. Although it’s the same here – when a kid is sick, TV it is! (Actually, my 6-year-old is THRILLED when she comes down with a fever so she can have unlimited Octonauts, so who knows how this will backfire in the future…) ;)
Any tips for helping do a screen detox? I have gotten really lax with my screen time rules, but want to kick the bad habit (for us both) to the curb. It got bad because my son’s 2 year sleep regression was 3 or 4 months long and he wouldn’t nap at all, so I (and he) needed a break so I would put on something fun. But that regression is over now and he naps more days than he doesn’t, so I need to wean us off the tv.
We fall into too much screen time when our preschooler is sick. As soon as he’s well, it helps to get him outside, especially if we can get to a park or a forest preserve, away from our immediate yard. If the weather is inclement, maybe a fast food joint with an indoor play place, or a grocery store that has good samples.
Changing his environment seems to jolt him out of, “But this is ALWAYS the time of day when I watch a movie!” (when “always” really means “for the past 4 days while I ran fever” but time doesn’t have a lot of meaning to him right now)
I am currently weaning my toddler away from screen time. I was really sick during my last pregnancy so we rested and watched lots of shows. It has now carried over, now that we have a newborn, especially when I’m nursing. This week we have staring cutting back drastically but not where we want to be. Any tips?
This is a little extreme but.. we reorganized our living room so the TV is no longer in there at all! The couches face the fireplace and there is a huge + pretty bookshelf with a speaker system for music and a coffee table. Maybe if you’re not into rearranging everything you could “hide” it while little guy is awake until he forgets about it? My toddler has completely forgotten to ask to watch anything.
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