To have abruptly limited DD screen time

[shaniahoo]

DD7 has had her own tablet since she was 3. Covid seemed like a good excuse for a lot of screen time because we were hanging around the house so much. Before tablet she was never capable of playing alone for any stretch of time, so it gave us some respite. This turned into dependency over time, because if nobody was available to play, she'd ask for tablet or TV and we would say yes.

Her brother was born last year and we relied on it even more heavily because someone always needed to be with him and if the other parent was at work or cooking or cleaning or whatever then there was nobody available to play, so screen time it was. Now she's getting older we could see her as a phone addicted teen, and we didn't like it, so we put a 45min a day limit on the tablet and only occasionally offering TV as an alternative.

We're all struggling with this change. DD just doesn't know what to do with herself. She wants to play with someone really but in the 3-6 period between school finish and dinner when she would normally have a straight run of screen time, I'm watching DS while waiting for DH to come home from work and then one of us cooks dinner and the other is still with DS. I think screen time was masking how upsetting it is for her that nobody can play with her after school. They are very different ages and can't play together properly and he can't be left. He grabs whatever she's playing with so we can't play together near him, and she's so rough with him when she tries to play with him. Most of her play with him is moving his body parts around roughly and trapping him or slapping him on the head and calling it "patting". I can't say how much of each afternoon is me saying "he doesn't like that" or "let him go". I try to teach her how to play with him in a nice way but she finds it boring.

She's an excellent reader and I suggest things like, well, reading, or puzzle books or art etc and she always says naaah, naaah, to every idea. She ends up either bothering her brother, rolling around on the sofa making noises or deciding she's going to do something elaborate that it's impossible for me to help her with, like junk modelling. The after school period is now a nightmare. Weekends and after dinner are good because there's usually one parent to play. We fit in playdates where we can and making the best of the quality time together we do have. But I'm wondering if we've made the wrong decision. She's struggling so much with having to entertain herself it's making all our lives so difficult. Should we just give the screen time back? Or is there a chance she could learn and adapt and become good at finding her own fun?

It's not like I'm paying her no attention at all. I have to stay in DS vicinity but I try to talk to DD at the same time. We do have conversations about her day. It's just very hard to do activities with her.

It will get better. Once your DS is 2, he will be better able to play with her

Your DS is at a really tricky age where I expect he can be quite destructive/unsafe if you leave him to it.

I think I would try and make more of a routine for the week. Something like:

Monday - library after school
Tuesday - playdate
Wednesday - bath night, DS has a long play bath while DD plays something on the floor with you
Thursday - sensory day, something like kinetic sand/slime
Friday - movie night

Also - could you stretch to some childcare? At
After school club once a week for DD? Local teen comes round to play with DS once or twice a week after school?

If I need inspiration for what my toddler can play with, I take my toddler to the church stay and play where they have a bazillion toys and see what engages him. They have magnatiles, small world animals, toy musical instruments etc. See what draws your younger one over, and then buy that.

You must find a solution and the solution is not just stuff your dd can quietly go away and do. She needs your attention. You need to make up for the lost time where you weren't giving her any.

Part of the solution must be stuff your ds can do independently

I don't think you have been having enough conversations with her if she's been on her tablet 3h everyday.

Find things they can both play, in their own way. I had roughly the same gap and then another in between them and when ds was toddling we did a lot of:

duplo (Lego not toddler friendly but older kids can still build with duplo)
wooden blocks - got a huge amount of mileage out of building really tall towers then knocking them down
magnatiles
toddler friendly plastic tea set - get teddies out and have a tea party
other toy food - shops, cooking etc
build a fort
living room ninja warrior (just take the cushions off the sofas and get the kids to clamber/jump between)
Does dd have school reading to do? Get her to read to ds and he can “sign” her reading record

Other than that, get a sling, Chuck ds on your back and do the baking/craft with her. He needs to wait sometimes, she needs to see you making time for her.

Your creating the same issue again when your son, a child who can't play independently.

Both of them need to learn and will need a little support/ guidance. It will be rough for both initially but worth it for you all in the end.

Give your son a toy he enjoys and can play with alone. Ensure he's in a safe environment (play pen, baby proofed room, cot) and leave him for 5-10 min.

Likewise with your daughter, give her an activity and say you're chopping onions or whatever and you'll be back in 5. You also need to make sure you're having quality time with her so she's not acting out as its a way to get attention she needs.

DD has a play kitchen in her room, no space downstairs. She doesn't let him enter her room, which is a shame because I do think he would like a play kitchen. Not in the sense that he would do pretend cooking though. He would enjoy taking things out and putting them back in again. If we were baking and he was on a play kitchen, he wouldn't link the two things and copy us by doing pretend cooking. He would be extremely curious and just try to grab what we were doing.

I mean since we limited it.

Surely you can change this.

Put DS in the pushchair and take DD a walk/park etc, lighter nights are coming.

Change her activity times.

Utilise a folding playpen or highchair, DS needs to learn to play independently for short windows. DS in high chair with toys and bake/play with DD.

This post has made me feel quite sad. You can't have a second child then just shrug and say you can no longer play with your first.

Crafts and baking are ideal activities to do with both, providing you think creatively about it. DS goes in his highchair with taste safe paint (there are thousands of really simple recipes online) whilst DD sits at the table and crafts. DS has playdoh whilst DD uses modelling clay. You all bake together whilst giving them both age appropriate roles (maybe DD measures the ingredients and DS mixes with you?). I have two DC and the possibilities are endless. Just look online/at ticktock for inspiration.

Yes, it will be more effort than giving her a tablet. But she deserves your attention too. Ideally she should be playing independently some of the time, but if she's always had a screen it's natural that she will struggle at first. You may have to show her how to play (even if it's frustrating to keep your youngest from messing up the game).

I think the issue is, that while DS can play by himself, absolutely he can, if he's playing by himself I can't start doing anything more interesting within his field of view. Like yeah, he'll carry a fire engine from one end of the room to the other over and over again for ages. But if DD and I got out a board game during that process he would stop playing and just disrupt our game instead.

And that's fine if he's not playing with it the right way. He can just chuck it all over the floor, line up stuff in rows, whatever.

That seems like a great first step, present dd with some child safe knives as "you're so grown up now, you can do real cooking with me" and the deal is her toy kitchen comes downstairs. Make room for it. Then dd cooks with you - mostly just does the odd chop or stir while chatting to you - and ds entertains himself

Op, your ds has tantrums because you’re not teaching him that some things are off limits for him. Your dd gets very angry because that’s how she can get your attention and because you’re not dividing your attention equally over both children. Op it sounds like you’re spending all your time with ds, basically pacifying him to avoid tantrums. That’s not fair to dd. She needs your attention and emotional support. How do you think people coped with having 2 kids before we had screens to keep kids occupied? Parenting is teaching kids boundaries. Your ds needs to learn that he is too young for some of dd’s toys. He needs to learn not to throw tantrums when not getting his way. Your dd needs to learn to be gentle with younger kids. She needs to learn not be become very angry. You need to step in before she has to get very angry. You need to learn to divide your attention.

I am in exactly the same position, 7 year old DS and a 14 month old baby. He’s definitely addicted to his tablet/Switch/YouTube and isn’t interested in anything else at all, not willing to read/craft/play and it’s so hard to keep him entertained without a screen. I can’t tear myself in half and they are at such different life stages

No advice but solidarity and following for tips, I know he has a lot screen time but I don’t know if I’m basing my thoughts that he has too much on growing up in the 90s when it wasn’t such a thing and it’s actually normal now or if he does actually have too much

So what do you do when he does this? Gently redirect him and then turn back to your activity with your daughter, or immediately stop and entertain him? If it’s the second, we know why he does that.

Do everything with dd on the dining table, everything with ds is on the floor. Easy.

Good on you, I had high opinions about screens but it's so so easy for them to creep in isn't it

Similar age gap to us, I found 12-18 months a really difficult in between stage, we're not long out of it so I remember well. Once he got to that next developmental stage the world just opened up and he became so much easier to occupy.

Is there anything at all that the baby would be happy to do on his own? Maybe in a high chair with some wacky fidget toys or even play dough? Or finger food? In his cot with some board books? The leapfrog guitar was a winner for us, on Vinted for a few quid.

Toddler sounds really bright, would she actually feel quite proud and grown up to be given some chores? Not with a reward attached but just to say "you're the big girl here and we can't manage without you", give her an ego boost (and something to do), I've been gobsmacked with how well my 2yo cottoned on to emptying the dishwasher and wiping floors etc he absolutely loves it! She might be old enough to realise it's "boring old jobs" though!

Another thing which helps here is to play music or audio books in the background, or if you can get your hands on a tonie box (but I know they're not cheap) they're amazing, I can't explain the science but it almost seems to fill a space in their brain and they play independently way better with background noise, rather than running to me every time they reach a gap in their imagination

All the best x

I do feel like I'm just giving excuses now by saying "no not that" to every reply, but usually when someone posts on here saying something is hard it's because it's hard and there's no easy solution or they would have thought of it. DS totally refuses his high chair at the moment even for meal times. So I can't restrain him at the table and do something like that together. Doing the mixing part of baking is not age appropriate for a 14 month old.

He can definitely independently play without a screen but he needs help learning how. Mine have had independent play since about 2 weeks old so it's been a gradual process. Hopefully others have good ideas for weaning and teaching, you're far from the only one. I expect it will take a while but be worth it.

Oh yes I remember this it drove me nuts.

Background music, so he gets in his zone more, isn't so distracted by what you're doing.

Are you literally in a one room open plan or can you get them out of sight from each other if he's playing with something, sneak DD into the kitchen with what she wants to play with. Sorry not very helpful but sometimes easy to miss the obvious when you're stuck in it.

Think you are going to have to learn to deal with the tantrums though. He's got you round his little finger by the sounds.

Earplugs? Loop are great for still hearing eg DD talking to you but blocking out the tantrum. I wore them all the time when the kids were little I can't handle the noise either.

There isn't an easy solution. The tablet is the easy solution. It will be hard initially but it'll improve.

Our role as parents is to keep them safe and teach them essential life skills. Sometimes that'll be hard for you and the kids, sometimes there'll be crying.

I think you need to find a way to do things with both. If she likes baking, toddler in high chair with a second bowl & spoon. Biscuits work well as you can give the toddler some of the dough to play with while DD cuts out the actual Biscuits.

Crafts similar. Toddler in high chair near table with his own craft supplies, DD at table with hers, you help both.

Going outside makes things much easier, though might be hard this time of year. When it's not raining, could you do a park trip or call in the library on the way home from school, that would reduce the hanging round att home time.

You are just making excuses.

when your son ruins your time with your daughter, what do you do?

It sounds like your ds can entertain himself to some extent (you mentioned toddling around with his fire engine) so that's one aspect solved.

Try this today maybe - sit and make Christmas cards (or similar) with dd at the dining table while ds romps around on the floor with his fire engine. Have a cup of tea and force yourself not to get up and engage with ds until you've drunk it. He'll stop pestering you once he knows you won't cave.

(I do this often enough because I just want the cup of tea lol).

Can you have a slow cooker dinner on, wrap everyone up and go outside for an hour in the evening? We go out even in the rain but I realise that's not everyone's cup of tea.