No matter your view on the usefulness and benefits of certain TV shows or educational apps, I think we can all agree that too much screen time is detrimental to the healthy development of our children, and to the health of our family overall.
According to the Mayo Clinic, too much screen time can be linked to:
- Obesity
- Irregular sleep
- Behavioral problems
- Impaired academic performance
- Violence
… and, well, less time for play! There is a lot of learning that happens during active playtime. Play allows children to explore, move, make mistakes and come up with the solutions to fix them. It allows them to be social and learn how to work as a team, and to be closer to nature and more comfortable in the outdoors. And let’s not forget, play simply allows children to have fun.
In our household, we have come up with a system that has worked really well for us since my daughters were 2 and 4 years old: Screen Day Wednesday. It really was born in a moment of exasperation after my eldest asked me for the umpteenth time if she could watch TV and I just felt sick of hearing myself say “no, no, no” to the same question over and over again. The word “no” certainly loses its effect when overused, doesn’t it? So in a moment of exasperation (or genius), I blurted out that Wednesday is the only day midweek that we can watch TV. And they took it and just rolled with it. It was as simple as that, I promise. My girls were young enough to take that statement at face value and not really argue with me, and since that pivotal moment, their relationship with the screen and my relationship with the word “no” have much improved. Weekends are more flexible, but we’re rarely home doing nothing on the weekends anyway, so I wasn’t worried about that.
For better illustration of how our interactions go now, here’s a sample back-and-forth between us from when my girls were 5 and 7:
Real scenario 1:
– Daughter 1: Mom, can we watch TV now?
– Me (very calmly): What day is it today?
– Daughter 1 (optimistically): Wednesday?
– Me: Nope, it’s Tuesday, so tomorrow you can.
Daughter walks away unperturbed – or sometimes slightly annoyed, but she gets over it pretty quickly.
Real scenario 2:
– Daughter 2 surrounded by three of her cul-de-sac friends: Mom, can we watch TV?
– Me: Sorry girls, it is not Wednesday today.
– Daughter 2 (turns to her friends and says): Ugh sorry guuuys, it is not screen day. Let’s go play on the swing!!
And they rush away excitedly.
Funny enough, now I even have the neighborhood kids ask me if it’s “screen day” or not, and no one seems particularly bothered when they realize it isn’t.
Have you tried a different trick to limit screen time in your household? I would love to hear about it!