to restrict screen time and not believe the DC can self regulate?

[FabFlo]

To limit the time dds spend in front of screens?

Dh says they should learn to self regulate and they won't be able to do that if I impose restrictions.

I want to have Wednesdays as no screen day - including TV. And also restrict the tablet to half an hour a day.

What do you do re. screens?

DC are 8 & 5

I agree with you op but obviously all kids are different. Dd started being glued to her phone last year (aged 12) so we introduced 1 hour of wifi a day. That stands for weekends as well as week days. She was annoyed about it at first but now accepts it and makes the most of her hour.

DD (5) is pretty good at self regulating. If she's tired at the weekend she might lay in front of a film or to programme, but she's just as likely to be colouring or playing as watching a screen. All screens tend to go off by around 6:30pm so that they don't interfere with dinner at 7pm.

Too much of anything is bad for you, even milk or vegetables or reading (that last as a book addict was so hard to write!).

I'm lucky I have a self regulator. Friends kids vary but what I have noticed with this type of issue is that gentle persuasion, encouragement and distraction works better than draconian drawing of battle lines.

Friends who try to be disciplinarian over screen time, bed time, sweets etc seem to be constantly fighting with their kids. I've had my battles with dd in the past over similar issues (too much fruit eaten, not coming in - I have somehow despite being a hermit myself spawned a nomad! Even in the most freezing weather murder to get her to come back from a walk or outdoor event, overdoing singing).

Parenting is a learning curve. Especially as they come to teens. I've learned that for us at least suggesting a different activity, explain concerns, joking them out of an obsession works better than 'stop that now!' (Not that I have never said that I just try to do so much less.)

Now if someone could just help me deal with the joys of us both being premenstrual at the same time I'd be ever so grateful

But what if they don't get bored arethereany? Still no need for boundaries?

in that case then yes.

But my kids get bored of the to or tablets. So there is no need to put limits on it. No need for rules if there isn't a problem.

Each child is different. If you think rules need putting in place, do it.

I restrict it to 2 hours a day. DD would be on Minecraft all her waking hours if I didn't!

Too much screen time is bad for you.

I would and do limit screen time. I'm the parent so I set the boundaries. As they get older I'll relax. (4&6 years old at the moment)

Mine can't self regulate either.
I don't allow any gaming during the week
I used to have a total screen ban during the week days but that's a bit relaxed now as they've got used to doing other things so don't tend to be so screen focused anymore.

I just couldn't bear the hysterics and crying everytime I asked them to switch anything off so had to ban it for all our sanity. It's worked really well and has been worth it.

There are ways of restricting it so it doesn't become a 'thing'.

Same with cake, alcohol, caffeine, etc etc. Kids can't self-regulate.

If this means a lot of friction with my kids then so be it.

Mine have unrestricted screen time and do self-regulate.

But they're also home educated so don't have to work around school hours, if they were limited to being able to only use watch/play on evenings and weekends around school I don't think they'd have found the balance that they have so easily.

4 yr old DS is only allowed his Nintendo or tablet from after school on a Friday to a Sunday afternoon. No TV before school. He is allowed TV on after school but the news goes on at 6. He's happy playing with his box of toys if I take his screens away.

Anastaisia, that's really interesting. I withdrew ds1 from school three weeks ago, and we are still deschooling. He has spent seven whole hours in front of a screen today while I have been doing diy. He's alternated between watching stampy cat and playing minecraft to put what he has learned into practice. I worry that he may never be able to self regulate! He looks pale and tired, and square-eyed if you know what I mean. He is seven.

I know that we will be dependent on screens for a lot of our learning (eg he is asking complicated questions about atoms, and what is smaller than an atom, mostly inspired by minecraft). I will need YouTube and Google to help me answer his questions. ..

Did your children self regulate straight away? Have you done any benevolent manipulation to help them with this?

This thread has made me feel like I'm a bit mad. It wouldn't occur to me not to regulate screen time. And I don't understand why adults should be regulated because children are. They are children, we are adults.
Hey ho

Kids are 1.5, 4 and 6. It's always been the same- TV after bath and before bed for about an hour, or they can opt to do something else. No TV the rest of the week but on the weekends we might watch a film one afternoon.

iPad on Sunday mornings to give us a bit of a break. They can play for as long as they want until about 11. My 4 year old usually finoshes before the 6 year old. Recently it's been wii or iPad on Sunday morning.

If they are silly about it (waking up too early, talking about mine craft too much, whinge in the slightest when it's over) then no iPads for a few weeks. Tbf they rarely need that imposed, never as for TV or anything else outside those allowed times and the system works really well for now. I'm sure we will need to rethink as they get older and go to bed later.

I suppose I'm hoping that having restricted it for long enough, when they're about 8+ they can be unregulated but fall into those sorts of patterns from habit.

Susietwo, I would probably have taken your approach, except that exDH used to park the children in front of screens from an extremely young age, as soon as i was cooking or in the shower or whatever. I am playing catch-up here. .

intothebreech mine have been HE from the start and have always been able to have screens whenever they request them but I try not to fall into bad habits about suggesting it for my convenience. That doesn't always work, but I try my best.

I can't think about it in terms of a day - there are days when dd1 plays minecraft, while watching a movie AND chatting to her friends on FaceTime pretty much all day. But there are also days when she has activities on and doesn't look at a screen all day, so if I take it a week or a fortnight at a time I can see that it does work. She'll pretty much always choose an activity and time with friends over screens, possibly because she knows that it'll still be available when she wants it. We went through a problem with her falling asleep if she was watching things later in the evening, so we just chatted about it and she decided for herself that if she has things on early the next morning she should probably read a book or do some drawing instead of screen time for a while before bed, so as long as I take the time to discuss concerns with her she's pretty open to ideas to manage her own behaviour herself instead of me having to do it for her. She's nearly 11.

Anastaisia, I wish I'd been able to HE mine from day one. I think so much of this battle could have been avoided if I'd got things right from the start.

I'm not mad keen on the way my children watch screens. So much of the time, they are passively sucking in absolute rubbish (eg when ds1 was five he got completely obsessed with power rangers, which I think is sheer drivel, and I would not have chosen ever put it on - but I was overridden and then had to put up with the consequences).

There's been a lot happening in ds1's life to destabilise him emotionally, and I think he feels kind of safe in front of a screen. However, it's not doing him much good to lose himself in this screen world so often as he is. He gets very cross (sometimes hysterically upset) when I ask him to switch it off, to eat or to go out to the shops. I suppose as we get more involved in other activities (and I finish the urgent diy) it might start to change.

At the moment, I'm going to ban screens in the daytime for a week or so, to see how we get on. Not sure if this is the right thing to do, but he needs to remember how to play. Also, I'm more than half expecting my ex to raise a fuss when he finds out we are home educating, and I need to be seen to be doing "proper" education - even though I can see that the autonomous approach would work much better for ds in the long run. It's so hard to know what to do for the best!