What Happened When My Kids Lost TV
On Saturday, my big kids wouldn’t start arguing. Everything was a “he did this” and “she did that.”
Finally, I had enough. “Y’all have lost all screen privileges for the next two days. Nothing. Now please, clean up this mess and find something to do.”
I didn’t realize that the punishment was going to be the detox they needed and the reset in parenting that I needed.
It was magical. First, Elias and Adeline decided to clean out the toys in Elias’s room. They dragged bags and bags of toys out, which was exactly the cleaning his room needed. And they did it without me asking them to do it.
Then, I heard them giggling with Ezra. I went to the door and all three were wearing dress up clothes. Elias was a ninja, Ezra was a superhero and Adeline was some sort of country western gypsy. I thankfully had my phone in hand, so I got a few photos while they giggled some more.
I can’t remember the last time they all played dress up. I will forever remember that moment of all three together, in one small bedroom, engaging with one another in silly costumes.
They also dragged out and played with toys that haven’t seen the light of day in months. They fought less and used their imaginations more.
It was a good reminder that the default in our parenting shouldn’t always be a yes, you can watch one show on the ipad or yes you can play Angry Birds for 15 minutes. Of course, screens and devices will always be a part of our lives. I’m not calling for total elimination. However, this weekend was a reminder to me that it is important to establish technology boundaries and stick to them.
I’ve been noticing that we have been leaning a bit too hard on television and screens lately. While we have let iPads go dead and talked about nights without television, we haven’t done anything formal or consistent. I know childhood is meant for so much more than technology. We have our whole lives to engage with a screen.
Today I’m thinking a lot about the creativity, imaginative play and smiles I saw this weekend. We are going to work harder to be more boundaried in our tech usage. Our family needs it.
I wonder if I am not alone in this. How does your family engage with technology? Do you need a reset like ours or are you good about limiting screen time? Would love your thoughts and comments.
My kids get no fun alone screentime on a school night…like Xbox or video games or iPad time. We might have a movie or tv show together if everything is going well that day. The weekends are for screentime. And when they play on a video game we have a timer to limit them otherwise neither of us knows how long it’s been! No screens before school and on non-school days we have a checklist of things to do before screens. No one has their own devise or anything in their own bedrooms. We share all screens and only have one TV. It all sounds so primitive when I type it out but it totally works for us!!
I’m glad I can tell my daughters I’m not the only one with these rules!!
They do have their own iPads but they are locked down where nothing can be downloaded without our permission and their internet has controls on what they can access.
I do think I like the idea of time blocking their weekend access and ensuring they do some outside playing and imaginative play also!
We have a ways to go still, but we did just implement some changes with the iPad. Here’s my discussion: https://momsradius.com/2018/03/our-current-screen-time-policy.html/
We have recently had a crack down on screen time for my 2.5 year old (wed’d been leaning on it to get us through multiple illnesses) and his behaviour has improved so much. He is only allowed the iPad on long journeys and has two tv shows a day (so about 20 minutes total).