The Effect of Screen Time on my Children – part 2
I wrote part 1 of this series on screens back in 2018. I haven’t published it until now because I never felt that it was good enough. And I have learned a lot in the past three years.
Determining the best use of screens as a long process
Over the past three years I have tried to help my kids regulate their screen time. I tried to implement set screen time hours, but that never worked because of all the activities that we participate in. We continually modified the hours to fit around our other activities. Because of all the exceptions to the hours that we constantly made, we decided to scrap the set hours.
Then I decided to allow them to have screen time as soon as they completed all of their chores and schoolwork. They enthusiastically agreed. However, after a little while of this policy I didn’t like it. It encouraged them to complete all of their schoolwork, but it still left no time for them to do anything to expand their imaginations and to experience boredom.
Free screen time also produced another unintended consequence of stress for both Super Stuffy and Bear Bear. Both of my kiddos focused so much on the amount of schoolwork that they had to do before they turned on screens. They also started to compete with each other to get done with their work first. This created panic when they weren’t going to have as much time on screens as they wanted. I didn’t like that stress. But I still wasn’t sure how to implement responsible screen time.
My Goals for Screen Time
I have several goals with screen time and my kids. I want them to have time to be bored. So much of our society focuses on the elimination of boredom, but I don’t believe that benefits us. Boredom allows expanded thought and imagination and I want them to have that time. Boredom often produces some of the greatest ideas.
I also desire to ensure that my kids have enough physical activity. They both participate in a lot of activities such as hockey and gymnastics, but I know the benefits of just going outside to play. Going outside to play in unstructured activity also contains the added benefit of the expansion of their imaginations and learning how to play together.
My Greatest Goal
My biggest goal with screen time and my kids consists of trying to teach my children how to regulate their own screen time. I learned from my own experience that creating strict limits on screen time will only inspire the opposite effect when they move out of the house. By allowing them the freedom to partially self regulate now, hopefully by the time they grow up and live on their own they will have already learned that lesson.
I still churned this problem around in my mind when a couple of weeks ago Bear Bear came to me and asked if we could have a screen free week. This ironic question came from a Youtube video of a family who attempted a 28 day screen free life. She wanted to just try one week. All three of us discussed it and we decided together to attempt just the five day school week. Super Stuffy opposed it most loudly, but willingly accepted it in the end.
Our Screen Free Experiment
Day 1
We started on Monday, April 12. One of the first things that Super Stuffy said to me that morning was, “I hate this!” However, as the first day progressed I saw many interesting things. The amount of arguing between the two kids did increase, but they did play together a lot more. Both of them also displayed an extra amount of silliness. I found that they discovered new things to do with their time besides focusing on screens.. They wrestled and rough housed a lot. They also chose to go outside and play all on their own!
The temptation to turn on screens proved strong, even for me. I don’t take much time to watch many videos or movies, but I do have my one video game on my phone that I play when I’m waiting for things. This screen free week meant that I could not play that game at all. Both kids caught me playing on that first day and soundly reprimanded me for it. So even though I loved the results of this first day, I did struggle with it as well.
We ended the day with all three of us getting ready to sleep by reading together. Super Stuffy fell asleep and so did I. Bear Bear possessed enough energy to get up and go to bed. I think that we all enjoyed the ending to this day.
Day 2
Super Stuffy woke up and started reading his book immediately. I woke up to see him with his nose in his book. This sight brought a huge smile to my face.
However, this day proved more frustrating for all of us. Both kids had trouble finding other things to do and I realized that turning to videos is way too easy to do. On this second day the video temptation felt even stronger than the first. I almost gave in, but we gave ourselves a little relief by figuring out how to solve a Rubik’s cube. I solved one for the first time in my life, although I did need Super Stuffy’s help to do so. He discovered that he wanted to practice solving a cube repeatedly so that he could memorize the pattern. I learned that cubing is huge, and the cubes of today are nothing like what we had when I was a kid.
The stress contained in this day felt different than normal. The kids did not stress out about getting everything done by a certain time because they didn’t have to get to any videos. Bear Bear felt a little bit of stress because she feels bad if she doesn’t get everything done, but for both of them the stress was different.
Day 3
One of the best side effects of this experiment is that all three of us read more. And even better, Super Stuffy seemed to enjoy reading much more than I had ever imagined. Bear Bear read more as well, although I don’t think that she enjoyed it as much as Super Stuffy, which surprised me a great deal. By Wednesday I felt that the benefits of this experiment far outweighed the frustration of missing screens, so I brainstormed a way to do this more often while taking into consideration the feelings of both kids.
I wanted to institute screen free days on Monday and Tuesday each week. I thought that this was a good compromise because even both of the kids agreed that the lower stress of not worrying about getting their work done by a certain time each day carried a great benefit. However, Super Stuffy did not agree, and for the first time in a long time we had a pretty big blowout. We both got frustrated with each other. Fortunately we patched up our differences and reached a compromise. We sat down and agreed that just Tuesday would be our screen free day. This gives the kids the openness of having a good amount of screen time, but it also gives me the satisfaction of seeing the kids use some time to find other things to do besides screens.
One great advantage of having the screen free week resulted in the kids doing their schoolwork ahead of time. They wanted to try to get all of their schoolwork done by the end of the third day so that they could be done for the week. What surprised me about that was that they showed excitement to get ahead. I wished that could be a permanent addition, but unfortunately it has not ended up that way.
Days 4 and 5
These days proved even better than the first three days. We all read more, and the kids even had more free time because they finished most of their schoolwork early. They spent a lot of time on the trampoline outside. Super Stuffy solved Rubik’s cubes several times a day, and we started time reading aloud again,, which I have wanted to do for a long time. On Friday night, though, our screen free time ended when we started our weekly campout of movies and macaroni and cheese.
What Have We Learned?
We all learned a lot from this screen free week. Some awesome things resulted from being screen free, but we also saw how much we depend on screens. It taught us that we can use screens as wonderful tools but we need to keep tabs on our screen use at all times. It becomes too easy to turn on any available screen to the detriment of our sanity. However, we also learned we can discover almost anything from our screen time. The ultimate takeaway from our experimental screen free week has taught us that, like everything else, screens can be useful in moderation, but we need to not allow those screens to control us.
As far as setting limits on their screen time, for this summer I intend to employ a happy medium. I do not intend to put strict limits on their screen time, but I will make several provisions. They will need to finish their chores and the small amount of summer schoolwork that I will assign to them. They also will need to spend at least one hour outside when it is nice weather. I love to spend time outside, so I hope that my being outside will also encourage them to do the same.
Later on this summer I will post again on our progress and how my kids have progressed on their own regulation of their screen time.
Have you ever considered instituting some screen free time? What happened when you tried it?
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