Hello!
My 13 year old DD has been increasingly spending most of her weekends on screens. Sometimes getting to 6-7 hours each day, or more. This is on top of the 2-3 she has weekday evenings. She does 2 clubs in the week (not sports though) and goes to a Friday youth club. We've normally kept weekends quite free and not too busy due her being busy in the week. But now she has a phone and more access to screens, it's showing that there's a bit of an issue.
She was getting quite irritable after coming off and just waiting around until she was allowed back on so a few weeks we did reduce down and set limits to 5 hours in total across all screens (mobile, laptop, consoles etc). Since then she's been caught lying to get more screen time. Mostly little lies but getting worse.
We've tried chatting about the importance of limiting screen time, the effects etc several times. She's had warnings and now after the most recent we have banned her from screens for a week apart from homework.
We want her to experience not having a screen at her disposal and actually go and do something with her time. She has endless toys and books, a bike to go out, park around the corner. Of course, she thinks we are being harsh but we are getting very frustrated with the lies and talking through/warnings are not working.
We have limits on screens and monitor use and this has been increased now.
So I really want to know what are your teens screen rules/schedules?
What do they do when not on screens?
Have we been too harsh on the week without screens for the lying?
Thank you!