How to deal with anti-screen DH

[Rainingharder]

My DH has become very militant and strict about restricting screen time with our DC (6&3). He works in education and has listened/read a lot around the subject, and would basically like to ban all screen time completely. Our kids currently have very minimal anyway (max 1 hour a day, if that), but he would like to stop it all. The thing is, I mostly agree with him about the benefits of limiting screen time, but I do think some times it has its uses, eg to enable us to have a lie in at the weekend, which in turn enables me to be a better parent as I’m less tired.

We are in the process of buying a campervan, and his latest thing is that any time we go away in it we have to ban all screens completely. I’m all for switching off, and spending more time together, but I’m an introvert (and a knackered mum!) and I think a little here and there isn’t harmful, and gives us a break. It needs to be a holiday for us too! I don’t feel we need to be so extreme. He’s now talking about pulling out of the sale of the van as that’s a dealbreaker for him, no screens at all, whereas I think there’s more of a middle ground that enables everyone to rest well.

Basically I just don’t know how to talk to him about a compromise, as he is becoming obsessively restrictive, and brandishes all the research about how damaging screen time is, when I would like there to be a little more compromise. But each time I bring it up I’m made to feel like I’m completely in the wrong because screens=devil and how could I possibly defend them…

He's not wrong. What has he proposed as the alternative? Children have to learn how to occupy themselves. Also, boredom is not necessarily something to avoid. The two things are important skills.

I don’t think “screens” is a helpful category, honestly. There’s a world of difference between using the technology to engage positively with something in which you have an interest and sitting passively for hours scrolling through crap on TikTok. I share an interest with one of my DDs and her level of knowledge now vastly outstrips mine. Why? Because she follows all the players on Instagram and researches all the history on the web and knows exactly what’s going on where and with whom. (I suppose in my youth there’d have been some sort of fan club and newsletter - but this seems far more efficient). When random questions come up in conversation or when we’re out and about (eg recently - who lived in that house? When was King George III on the throne? How old is Noel Gallagher?) you have a literal encyclopaedia at your fingertips. All of this is great.

My other DD is a big fan of a TV show. She was discussing the storyline, the structure, the characters - which led on to an interesting discussion about how some of these things might work in real life. Again - I think that’s a good thing. She’s found - independently of me - something she likes and is engaging with it. It’s sparked a discussion. All good.

I’m not blind to the fact that it’s not good for kids to spend all day on computer games or mindlessly scrolling through social media. Of course it isn’t. But is a ban really the answer? I don’t think it is - not least because using screens is just a fact of modern life and school and any job that these kids will have in the future. And because it is so prevalent, a total ban can make it into a real forbidden fruit. A friend of mine used to swap babysitting with another friend of hers when their kids were smaller. Her friend was like your DH and her friend’s DD was forbidden any screens at home. But when she went to my friend’s house, it was really difficult as they literally could not prise the iPad from her hands when she had it. She’d mither for the TV endlessly. (A bit like a child who’s been denied sugar and then goes completely mad at parties - that sort of thing.) So in the end, it seemed counterproductive- the child who didn’t have screens was far more focused on them than our kids, who were allowed a bit of TV but found it far more fun/a novelty to be able to play with a friend when one was actually there. Your DH is, I’m afraid, in danger of creating the proverbial monster with this one….

As a child, we had the Book Box. This was a box of books we kids had chosen at village/school fetes book stalls etc. So all books we had picked. This came with us on our travels - any sign of boredom or needing to chill, out came the book box. We wanted to read/look at the books (even if we couldn't actually read them, although at 3 I could read, my youngest brother didn't bother to read till 7 as he had brothers and sisters happy to read to him.)

For mine, we also had the Toy Tote Bag, small beach size not the absolutely massive one - again full of small toys/games some new eg pack of playing cards, some recycled - my travel scrabble from 60 years ago, or toys eg small transformer like toys, dinky cars, small Lego kits - I had some from free with petrol about 25-30 years ago, that kind of thing. Plus colouring books and crayons. The secondhand stuff again was chosen at fetes and put in the bag for future use.

One item to be chosen each time = at least 20-30 minutes play/child occupied value. Once the kids get older the books get longer and occupy for longer.

Edited to add all our holidays were estate car based - so ferry if overseas, we didn't fly. If we did a train journey we were allowed one book to bring with us for the train. In the car we worked our way through car spotting games and I spy books (for train I also preferred I-Spy books as I struggled with travel sickness)

Screens are a multi-use device and can be.
Bookstores
Cameras
Cinema
Educational
Shows
Newspapers
Telephone
Games consoles
Colouring book

I think screen time problems are overblown, the latest hobby horse of those grifting a living via their PhD/Master/ degree in sociology/psychology.

I think screens and TV are a little different. My friend has an only child and he watches TV for downtime when she needs to get on with chores.

Getting them into crafts is a good idea. My friend has built up a craft cupboard and her child can work pretty independently but he is 6. I can't imagine a scenario where you wouldn't have to supervise a 3 y/o.

There's also interactive fitness games.

I'd be more inclined to have restrictions not an outright ban.

I agree with your husband I"m afraid.

my children are now 9, 11 and 13 and have benefited SO much from us being pretty militant about screens.

A agree with your husband.
Kids watchingTV alone as babysitters stiffles speech, muscle and eye development, creativity etc. etc.
He has done the research.

I would completely have no TV/screens during the week days in the morning - that is an easy no brainer.

I would compromise on screens at other times and aim for no more than two or three hours per weekend...
Plan a family movie night Friday or Saturday.
Plan one morning on the weekend where the kids can watch cartoons etc for an hour - giving adults a sleep in.

Other than that, TV of a school night creates problems of not engaging in readers, chores, sport, talking, cooking.
Your children are so young; they don't need screens at all.

Buy the campervan but install board games, an old fashioned GameBoy, a crochet hook, a CD player, a radio. As the kids get older the parameters will change.

He's right.

An hour of screen time per day is a massive amount for small children.

And as a teacher he can probably quite literally see the difference between the children who have had a lot of screen time and those who haven't, and he knows which camp he wants his own kids to be in.

The compromise is that if you’re cooking tea while away in the camper, he looks after the kids.

There’s an absolute moral panic about screens

People used to say the same things about books a hundred years ago, that kids should get outside and are always stuck inside reading/staring at a page. Or the panic even further back that women were reading too much and it would currupt them. In the 90s it was video games.

Screens can offer amazing benefits for education, especially as kids that grow up using media but are taught critical thinking skills about adverts/the ideas pushed on them will fair better in life.

Banning something they will use later in life won’t help them learn self regulation.

Look at how well pushing abstinence on teens related to sex has worked out, worse than educating them.

Parents stress themselves out way too much about screens. Out entire lives are completely manufactured and detached from the natural processes we evolved in, maybe he should ban schools, antibiotics, spoons, concrete, things that also cause harm from our modern world and we didn’t evolve with.

(I too have worked in education and researched it at post-grad level, there’s always a counter argument to everything)

I think your DH is right. Our tv broke when the DC were small and we couldn’t afford a replacement right away. It was a week of pain and moaning, then the problem disappeared. Kids learned to play, occupy themselves and were a lot calmer. We stayed tv free for about 10 years. We noticed their worse behaviour when staying with family who had the tv on a lot. We would have 30 mins peace while they were watching, but then paid for it later threefold.

Kids of 3 and 6 should be able to occupy themselves for 20-30 minutes while you cook or stare at a wall. Once you’ve broken the addiction it is easier to occasionally watch a film or programme together now and then in a rainy campervan.

He sounds controlling and weird. I’m not a fan of tablets for young kids either and the awful dopamine scrolling in a creepy trance but you don’t even own them so not relevant. If it really is just 1 30 minute TV episode in the morning and another in the evening, with plenty of playing and making their own fun in between then I just don’t see the issue. Fine if he doesn’t want to do it on his time but he doesn’t get to tell you that you can’t on yours.

Would he take it so far as to ban family movie nights, because it certainly sounds like it, and that be a real shame? Like if you were to go away in the camper, have a busy outdoorsy day, it’s dark and raining and he’d hard veto snuggling up together to watch a film?

yes they are definitely overblown! Totally agree with this comment, it’s the latest moral panic about children and historically similar things have been said about many things over the last 500 years.

I assume he is also happy to forgoe all screen/ electronic time for himself? From what I'm guessing- they are watching television when you're saying screen time- they don't have tablets? He's being ridiculous to say that an hour of television over the space of a day is an issue, and if he wants none at all, great, none for him and he can facilitate it too, since he's happy to be always on. Not everyone is, and he should recognise that you need personal time in a way he doesn't

My children didn't have any screens until they were 10 and they were perfectly capable of playing by them selves and giving me a lie in.
We also did a holiday with no screens when they were young teenagers and that meant us too. It was one of our best holidays so I can see his point of view.
However it's not yours and so some compromise needs to be had on both sides

We managed to have no screens on holiday. We found a place where they could spend lots of time playing outside with other children. They were in our line of sight but otherwise left to it. I think screens are a bit of a crutch for modern life where kids don't get to do this so much.

Try to look at it from another perspective. There is more and more evidence coming out that screens are problematic for kids, to put it mildly.

Your DH has heard this and is very concerned for his children. He wants to give them a great start in life, he wants what's best for them. So do you, obviously, so isn't it wonderful that you both are such involved parents?

You both ultimately want the same thing. If you both keep that in mind when discussing this topic it might help you reach a workable compromise.

This. It's sad how people are so quick to defend them when it's so obvious the damage they do. I've definitely noticed it in my own DC

I agree ^

We're talking a television 🤣

Not ipads and switches

If DH wants to rule the roost during HIS time looking after the children....he can fill his boots

On YOUR watch.....put the bloody TV on, if that makes it easier for you

Why are some men (people?) so bloody controlling? Tell him to fuck off

I think a good compromise would be to keep it as it is when you are at home and when you are out with the van there are no screens. There's two of you there to occupy the kids so if you need downtime he takes the kids out for an hour or something. I didn't have screens growing up and we did a lot of camping. Thinking back at what we did to entertain ourselves during downtime was listening to stories on our walkman, drawing, laying in the grass looking at cloud formations (don't know why I loved that so much) or just be bored.

I think you should just try it and once the kids get used to it I think it will be fine. I don't think my parents were overly stressed because we didn't have screens.

If your DH works in education and is so anti screens, then ask him why is it that from KS1 schools are relying on app based games to do homework on and by the time they are at KS4 all coursework/homework is done on a screen?!
Or is he only anti screens when it comes to downtime and watching YouTube/playing games/watching tv?

Your DH isn't militant he is controlling. It's alright for schoolwork to be done on a screen like times tables rockstars etc but God forbid your children is allowed any time to watch/play something else.

My middle child through all my hard work trying to reach him how to read and spell (like I had done my 1st child) was having none of it and he learnt the bulk of how to read and spell from YouTube and gaming (mainly minecraft)

When he comes at you with all this research, tell him the day schools back to paper and textbooks as their main form of learning you'll listen until then he's a hypocrite. Long gone are the days of a black/white board now it's a screen with the Internet constantly pulled up on it.

You have DH problem not a screen problem.

This. And most people who grew up in the 90s watched a shit ton of TV and seem to be fine. It’s not a new phenomenon. Most people I knew at school watched CBBC, then Neighbours, Home and Away and then some more soaps in the evening. Every day. Banning screens and sugar, like my parents did just makes both of them irresistible to children and causes issues later in life. Tell him to chill the fuck out and that the research also shows that having a control freak for a parent isn’t exactly beneficial either.

You are right, of course there are advantages and screens are all of those useful things.

As adults we are not as affected because our neural pathways are formed, we are fully developed musculoskeletally - and we know when to get up and stretch etc.

Blue light from screens affect a human body and a child's body more so. Sleep cycles are disrupted. Addiction can easily occur and alter dopamine levels etc. Children are more at risk. Screens can influence their brain pathways as they develop, greatly slow gross and fine motor skills, delay communication skills, affect posture and bone strength etc..

Risk to small children is clearly evident.
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The posters going on about the evils of screen time are missing the point - which is that the OP's husband wants to lay down the law but then resents the extra parenting he has to do.

I.e. he gets to make the decisions, but the OP then has to do the work.of implementing it.

Yeah but watching an hour or two of tv a day is not going to cause that is it? Children have been doing that since my mum was a child and she was born in the 1950s. She used to watch hours of tv while my grandma was at work.