Kids & Screen time

My oldest just turned 7, and I have slowly learned that the kids do best and are happiest not when I set them up with the best possible environment or activities or rules or whatever, but when I’m consistently and actively engaged with them and considerate of their needs and perspectives as much as my own. Sometimes I worry that they might get too much screen time, but sometimes I go to wake them up and discover that they’ve snuck out of bed to quietly read together.

Address problems that need addressing as they arise, but try to remember that, on the balance, things turn out ok.

We have two kids who were raised essentially screen-free until 3, then on a 1hr a week diet until 6. We worried all the time about the transition to school, and the cultural norm of allowing a lot more screen time. This was an imagined dragon — this has not been an issue at all. My oldest just got a Switch, she plays less than 1/2hr a day — then she walks away without issue. She has friends with phones and iWatches (she has neither) and her envy level is zero.

My point here is not that we’ve done anything right, or wrong, or to emulate. Instead, I say this point out the I’ve had to learn to worry about, and address, the real issues — when they become real. There are not enough hours in the day to worry about all theoretical mistakes I’m making as a a parent. I choose to focus on the actual, observable, issues we are having.

For what it’s worth — many of our neighbors have kids that play all the time on the Switch, have phones, and watch TV every car ride anywhere, and those kids are LOVELY. They aren’t screen demons — and they aren’t behind in math, reading, eating vegetables… I think it could be it doesn’t really matter as much as it gets focused on.

At any rate it matters a whole lot less than loving them, and figuring out what works for YOU and for THEM — and that’s something it took me way too long to learn.