Screentime

Hadley Stern raises a bunch of questions about how much time kids should be spending in front of computers (and TV and video games etc).  I’m not sure why this is such an issue for people.  Growing up I spent a huge amount of time in front of computers and I’m (at least reasonably) normal.  The key element isn’t so much restricting a passion for computing or even TV and video games, it’s more about encouraging other activities.  Kids won’t enjoy other activities much if they do them because they are no longer allowed to be doing what they really wanted.

I’m sure there are cases where kids have an unhealthy addition to computers, TV or video games but they’re pretty rare.  It’s also just as damaging for kids to be spending all of their time sitting in their room reading or spending all their time out playing with their friends.  Doing any one thing to the exclusivity of everything else is the problem, not being passionate about something or enjoying something and wanting to do it a lot.  Some kids love books and spend most of their time alone reading, some kids like video games and spend most of their time playing them, some kids enjoy socializing and spend most of their time with friends.  None of that is a problem if they spend some of their time doing other things – socializing, reading, playing and “veging out” are all important activities and the balance between them will differ for different people.

Perhaps instead of limiting the time your kids spend doing something you should just make more time available to spend with them doing something else they enjoy and that you feel provides balance in their life.  Just the fact that you’re spending time with them will most likely give them some interest in the activity (unless you’re just making them hold stuff for you while you fix the car – that just drives kids nuts).  Obviously they won’t be interested in everything but you need to find the things that you are both interested in doing and do them together.  I believe it’s called building a relationship or something.  Just because you can set rules for them doesn’t mean it’s always the best way to achieve things.

Of course, none of this is specifically directed at Hadley or anyone in particular.  Each situation is different and needs to be handled differently – I doubt it hurts a child to have rules about how much TV they watch etc anyway. I’m just a big fan of avoiding rules when possible and instead using encouragement and expectations.  Encourage children to consider their actions instead of just telling them what’s right and wrong.  They won’t be able to understand expectations when they are young but they will understand encouragement.