How to talk about balance
If you’re noticing your child is on a screen more than you’d like, you should initiate a conversation to understand what’s going on. You could say this:
You- “I want to make sure you have enough downtime to feel refreshed but not so much that you get lost in time and lose track of other stuff you need and want to do. Do you feel like you can put a number on how much time I should give you on your phone per day? “
Child panics, thinking you are about to take their screen out of their hand…mumbles an ‘I don’t know’
You- “It sounds like we both think that balancing your downtime with other important parts of your life is what matters most. Do you agree? Great! So as far as I’m concerned, these are the things you need to do every day to maintain that balance:
· Stay on top of all your schoolwork.
· Read 30 minutes if you have no homework.
· Move your body. (Here you need to be specific as to what this looks like)
· Help around the house. (Here you need to be specific as well)
· Spend time with friends in real life. (Again, specificity preferred)
· Follow rules for tech free time: no phones at the table, during short car rides and during special family activities. This makes it so much easier to enjoy each other. Plus no phone thirty minutes before bedtime so you can wind down.
If you can check off all these things, then you’re living a balanced life and I see no reason to put a time limit on the phone use. If not, we will need to be stricter about how you use the phone. I’ll use balance as the scale to measure your success.”
(From 14 talks by age 14 by Michelle Icard)
My guess is, if your child is doing all of the above things and sleeping the recommended amount per night (9+ hours) there is NO WAY they will have more than the maximum recommended amount of screen time per day of 2 hours. There’s just not enough time in the day for all of that!
Lastly, always remember it’s important with these talks to ‘get in and get out’. Nobody likes a lengthy lecture.
You’ve got this.