Can you help me reduce screen time? Losing my mind

[Bananaste1]

DS is 6, and I think we let him watch more TV / shows on his tablet than we probably should....

Sometimes, when he comes into our bed at 5am, we just give in and let him watch bluey on his tablet. We're just too tired from work to get up at that time (or argue).

He tends to watch it over breakfast, whilst I'm trying to get the 1 year old fed and ready. He'll watch it for about an hour when he gets home from school. He's not watching anything "bad", it's generally bluey and Alvin & the chipmunks, but I do think there's an improvement in his behaviour when he doesn't watch so much of it.

We've been away on a UK break the past week and he hasn't watched any TV at all. I've tried hard to cut it out, and whilst he hasn't asked for it, he has demanded an awful lot of attention as a result. Don't get me wrong, I love interacting with him, just in moderation...We get up at 6am and he instantly asks to play monopoly. Nobody wants that before a cup of tea. He's so terrible at playing on his own, so if I don't allow screens then I'm essentially filling the gap and it's EXHAUSTING.

Please help. How does everyone else do this? I'm not lazy, I'm just drained and exhausted and I've historically used the screen time to either get things done or just unwind! He's so full-on!

So my questions are:
If you don't allow screen time over breakfast, what do you do? Do you chat or do you play games?

When you're getting ready, what do you do for someone who won't play on their own?

Is is just a matter of seeing this through, putting up with the moaning about "being bored", and hope he comes out the other side with a better imagination and more patience?!

I think you have plenty of advice. “Im
bored” can be met with “good, boredom
is good for you!”

I get the early wakes fortunate that mostly
my my kids don’t. But when younger I would sometimes
put on cartoons to catch up with sleep.

and feel guilty!

i find mine do best with a screen routine.

know what’s allowed each day and stick to it. so I’ll say sorry but Tuesday is no screen day and I don’t get an argument.

holidays are worse as all routine goes to pot! But have a routine that they know and soon they will adjust.

you may have to adjust and go to bed earlier !?

My DC is also 6. They don't have a tablet, will borrow one of ours for a plane ride etc. No rules about screen time but other than never on during meals. I'd say she watches about 2-4 hours a week, she just rarely asks for it. Colouring, independent play, reading, playing "let's pretend" games with us, playing out with friends etc. But the one thing I think is adults seem to be afraid of their children being bored these days - I think it's fine and encourages them to use their imagination. She played for 45 mins with Mr Knife and Mrs Fork the other day, just chattering away to them!

Some great advice on this thread, thank you everyone! Yesterday I got a "write your own story book" on Amazon (he loves to write but really struggles to come to with any ideas, but this has great prompt to help), and a maths workbook as well. I'm always writing maths tests out for him, so I figured this would go down well! And it did 😀 he spent like an hour working through these books whilst I did stuff in the kitchen! Yay. One day down...

What did you do when you were his age? How did your mother control what you watched on TV?

This summer I've replaced screen time with going out for a walk. Ours is 7 and likes it. I give up in the all mornings. Winter it's much harder. I'm embarrassed how much screen my kids watch, I'm just wiped out though and need a break. Same with my husband.

Lose the tablet?? Like, actually pretend that it's lost?

I mean, wtf come on, do some parenting! Get out of bed ffs

Audiobooks here. Get up at 5, they can put an audiobook on. Over breakfast they can have the radio on, afterschool they can do colouring/art work/Lego/playing with an audiobook on.

To be fair I wouldn’t be getting up for my child at 5am. If mine wakes before 7am he listens to his Yoto player or looks at his books. No bugger is getting me up before 7am!

I haven't rtft but have thread some of the responses and mine is similar really. My eldest is 7 but they do have two younger siblings, the middle one is 3 and they're very close. The fighting and splitting time for them etc is challenging but on the upside they do entertain each other as well.

We have a hard no to screen time in the mornings apart from something like illness. There is never screen time before school/nursery. After school screen time for the eldest is capped at 30 minutes - I set a timer either on my phone or on the egg timer. And she's only allowed that once she's changed out of her uniform, washed her hands, and done a few pages of some workbooks we have for her (,at the moment this is spelling and handwriting as were told by the school these are lagging unfortunately).

We have one ancient tablet for the entire family that is only ever used on long car journeys (a few times a year) for TV shows or games, and the kids have to take turns even then.

My eldest isn't an early riser but on the odd occasion where they do wake before anyone else, they stay in their bedroom reading or listening to their Yoto with headphones, or playing quietly in their room, until they hear someone else wake up. I would actually be fine for them to go downstairs and get themselves something to eat and play quietly there if they wanted but we discussed it and they said they'd rather stay in their room.

It will be harder for your DC in some respects at the moment because their sibling is too small to play with. That being said my eldest does do things alone though too, apart from what I've said they do: colouring in, drawing, crafting, sticker books, word searches, listening to music and dancing and singing, writing, playing with the dolls house, tidying up, sometimes helps me dust or helps empty the dishwasher, Lego, Magnetiles.

Occasionally she will go to friends houses after school or we host them too.

Audio books, Lego, colouring in books? He needs to learn how to play independently. Start him off by doing the task with him, then slowly withdraw/leave him to it. Once he's fairly absorbed you should be able to focus on other things a bit more.

@coxesorangepippin wow, I knew someone like you was due at some point 🤣