Give Kids Unlimited Time to Watch in Front of the Screen, but Only After They Finish Their Day to Day Activities
As a parent who works from home, screen time is always a topic of discussion in our family, especially during summer and winter breaks. Since my job requires me to actually focus without sounds, with kids asking for snacks and bickering over who controls the Netflix lineup, I had to come up with a strategy that worked for everyone. And a few years ago I had a stroke of genius.
While working on an article I was reading, the author emphasized that the person is most productive in the activities that they start with at the beginning of the day, I developed a “schedule” that was aimed not only at helping my teens focus. activities outside of screen time, but also rewarded them with unlimited use of their screens.
Yes, I said unlimited screen time .
On days when my kids are out of school, they have four tasks they must complete before being allowed to dive into their screens: an hour of exercise, an hour of creative activity, an hour of reading, and an hour of housework before starting them. devices stick to their faces. And the catch is, they can’t start work at 5 am to finish work before I even start my work day.
We have agreed to start our “work days” at the same time, and since I work part-time, I have a hard stop around the time they finish their morning chores.
When I first proposed this screen time plan to my kids, they were hesitant.
“Will you stop whining about screens if we do everything on the list?” they asked. When I promised them that if they delayed their end of the deal, I would stick to the reward, they went all-in right from the start.
The first few days forced us to adjust the timeline for some events. Because while expecting your child to exercise for a full hour is great, the reality is that if you don’t have an Olympic-size pool in your backyard where your child can do butterfly exercises for an hour, a ten-year-old has a hard time staying on the move. an hour.
We solved this problem by brainstorming simple actions to keep them active. My kids preferred to ride a bike, ride scooters in the nearby park and shoot hoops in our driveway most of the days. As for my oldest son, when he asked if he could wash my car during one of his workouts, I was more than happy to help.
After a few weeks of summer vacation, we all plunged into a predictable routine and it was great. Everyone had their own rhythm of the day, and my children felt free to choose the activities that suited them in their free time. Since we didn’t have hard and fast rules about the order in which they performed their tasks, each child moved at his own pace.
And an unexpected bonus? They often spent more than an hour studying because they were so absorbed in creating a model or completing a book that they lost track of time. Both children told me that they don’t mind “working” while I work because they know they will be spending time with me in the afternoon. This is a win-win.
While this timeline has worked great for our family over the past few years, it’s worth noting that screen time rules and decisions are not rigid or fast-paced.
I recently spoke with Ana Homayun, author of Social Media Health : Parenting Teens and Adolescents in an Unbalanced Digital World , about additional ways to talk to kids about their social media and screen use.
“There is a difference between a teenager who uses screen time on purpose or mindlessly,” she says.
Ultimately, Homayun says that talking to kids about screen time is key. Having strict rules or bans on the use of social media can lead them to riot and bypass your instructions.
“Social media is about connection, and teens want to feel connected to those around them,” says Homayun.
Of course, every parent has their own screen time guidelines, and you know your child best. But by starting with conversations about goals, boundaries, and intentional uses, parents and teens can lay down swords in the battle for screen time and social media use.