How to Get Rid of Your Child’s Technical Addiction
The global pandemic has changed the world on a macro level, but also changed the microcosm of our family life . Screen time was once a special treat for my kids, saved on weekends and movie nights. Oh, but then all the schools closed. And kindergartens. And summer camps. All of a sudden, the screens turned into school or vice versa, and the days got a hell of a lot longer.
My daughter handled it surprisingly well. She misses the teachers and the classroom environment, but it turns out that she really enjoys doing homework on the computer. And chatting with friends on Zoom. And stay connected with Messenger Kids. And YouTube. Oh, YouTube.
In other words, my 8-year-old daughter is now into technology just like her father (and mother) before her. And especially now that school is over and both of her parents are still working, it becomes a problem, but we have found a solution that will help us (and her) deal with it.
Tired of constantly arguing over what she does on the computer and when, we figured out a way to turn her device – in this case the only laptop in our family not designed for work – into a finite resource: just unplug the power cord. … She now starts each day with a full battery – about four hours of intensive use on this 2015 Macbook – and is allowed to use it in any way she sees fit. If she wants to watch DrawSoCute videos on YouTube for two hours straight? Fine. If she wants to zoom with her best friends, even better. If she wants to read one book after another on Epic , great. But when the battery runs out, she doesn’t have time for the day and must decide what to do next. In theory, this teaches her a number of useful skills: impulse control. How to prioritize. How to stick to your own schedule. How to keep yourself occupied when screens are not an option . In practice, it was … a transitional period. As a rule, children do not know how to self-regulate, and their skills develop over time . Even at 8, my child struggles with concepts like deferred gratification – she doesn’t want to deal with the fact that she needs to quit DM now if she wants to watch a craft video later. But every day she gets better, and the fact that she can see the clock counting down on the computer in the corner of the screen makes her think about it and helps to suppress emotional outbursts when it comes time to close the laptop for the whole day.
If the battery life of the devices your kids use is too long to be used in one day, you can change the time between charges, although at the moment I can’t imagine it will take more than two days. I mean, let’s be realistic: her progress has been encouraging enough and I’m thinking of doing something like this for myself. I need to use my computer all day for work, but given that I spend most of my time at home, there is no reason why I also need to be on the phone all day. So, I charge my aging iPhone overnight and can only use it as long as the battery runs out. Hopefully this saves me from trying to follow Slack and Twitter while I play with my kids in the evenings, as I don’t want to just stare into an existential abyss after they go to bed. I will actually do it. I swear. I’ll start … tomorrow.