My kids love their iPods. Most kids love their iPods, I imagine, and most parents probably struggle to separate the wretched devices from their little beasts. Remember that scene from the Fellowship of the Ring where Bilbo sees the ring hanging from Frodo's necklace? The one where - just for an instant - he transforms into a Gollumesque, pointy-toothed, sunken-eyed he-devil? Well take that and subtract 'just for an instant', and you'll have an idea of the state of my children when Talking Tom or Minecraft Mobile Edition is unceremoniously interrupted by how-dare-you Dad or what-do-you-want-now Mom.
We had TV. They have the internet. And it is crack.
OK... disclaimer. I am as guilty as the next person for paying attention to my phone when I should be paying attention to my kids. It's not all the time, but it happens, and they notice. Like when Théo says he wants to show me something really awesome (he's seven - most of the time whatever he's peddling is awesome to exactly one person in the house) and I say okay, he'll start in on whatever his cardboard box is doing. I watch for about 2 seconds and then my eye catches the next Failblog post, which often is pretty awesome. And then there's another. And soon I hear from a distant corner of my mind "Dad!? Are you watching?" Nope. I'm not. Because most of the time Failblog does awesome better than my son.
So am I the best example? No. And that's why the topic of today's blog post is all about motivating your kids when you can't even motivate yourself. Because the internet is an awesome, powerful thing. And I needed a tool.
Children 2 to 5 years of age should have no more than one hour of screen time a day, according to the American Association of Pedriatrics (AAP). We're in Canada, but we live a lot like Americans here so I figure that's a reasonable authority. For older kids, the AAP recommends that parents decide what's right. Well, thanks for the help AAP. Four years at one hour a day (two to five equals four - check my math yourself) easily escalates into every freaking minute possible at six years old. It's like giving a heroin addict just one hit a day for four years straight and then saying hey - use your judgment. Peace out.
Because what the AAP says fails to recognize that screen time for kids is addictive. For the parents. That's right. Even well-meaning, engaged parents get tired and bored of seven-year old awesomeness. And daddy's little helper is a 3x6 inch screen with talking cats. And it goes forever if you let it. Want a nap? "You can play for half an hour." If you've waited five years for a nap, that nap's gonna last more than 30 minutes, because Talking Tom makes it possible. Need to focus on writing your blog post? Bam! Candy Crush! Go! And on and on.
The screen creates silence, and parents crave silence.
So as parents we recognized that we needed some rules... mostly for ourselves. Our first attempt was a straight-up one-hour-a-day limit. But damn it if Star Wars wasn't more than an hour long. So no movies? That's crazy talk. And repression leads to rebellion or sneaking (another post about that to come... maybe), so it's not a long-term solution.
So we started to let the kids bank time. Only use 30 minutes today? You get 90 minutes tomorrow. And so on. But that had its own set of problems: Théo (7, remember) would crush his screen time while Mom and Emma slept in until 9 every day. We homeschool, so they can do that. It works, so put your little judgy-face away. So Théo's bank was always empty and Emma (12) ended up using that as a way to passive-agressively torment him. After school she'd play a video game knowing he wasn't even allowed to watch. Because of the rule, right? If they were on the same schedule it would be easier but they're not and it's hard for a seven-year-old to get that. And it's hard to expect him to be able to discipline himself when he's the one who wakes up the sleepyheads every morning.
The hour-a-day rule, even with banking, also didn't take into account the fact that Théo leads a much more active life than his sister. Need help weeding? He's the wheelbarrow master. Mowing the lawn? He's (almost scarily) following you around with an empty stroller or bike trailer. Emma may not be on her iPod, but she's on her butt.
So we needed a rule that took all of this into account. And we got one. And it's awesome. Failblog awesome; not seven-year-old's cardboard box awesome.
The kids wake up each day with one hour of screen time to use as they wish. They can bank it if they want, or they can crush it before breakfast. That doesn't change. What's new is that they can earn more screen time by - wait for it - going outside. Every hour outside gets 15 minutes of bankable/useable screen time. Four hours outside means you've doubled your screen time for the day.
Ok you say... sounds like an idea... maybe even a good idea...but is it an awesome idea?
Yes. It is. Because Théo has more screen time now than he knows what to do with and he doesn't use it. He still fills that hour every morning like he always did. And then he makes himself go outside. And then he doesn't come in.
If you've ever had a gym membership you'll recognize yourself here. You were going to get fit, and you paid for that membership and - for those first few weeks - you were rock solid. Four times a week of turning money into muscle. Yeah! And then by about week five you remember that pints are $3 on Thursdays and hey... everyone's going. And the next week Game of Thrones is on. It's not that you dislike going to the gym. In fact, you really like it. But the hardest part is getting off the couch. Shoes, clothes, drive, ugh. But if you get to the gym you kill it, and when you get home afterwards you feel great and you're more likely to pass on the Pringles.
Kids are no different. Whatever they're doing takes less effort than what they're not doing. But when they have to stop what they're doing (screen time) and know they can get more by taking a few easy steps like getting dressed and playing at the park they just do it. But there's no one hour park rule. So after one hour they don't rush back in to play Zelda because it takes more effort than just staying at the park, which is suddenly a lot of fun. They stay outside and rack up that bank time. And they force themselves to figure out how to have fun outside.
And they love the rule, because they control it. "I want more screen time" now equals "I want to play outside." So they agitate to get out there. That's new for us.
Getting them to drive the outside time is just one benefit. There's also the benefit of them learning about saving, and delaying gratification. Théo was so pumped when he saved up 10 hours of screen time. He was thinking ahead three days and figuring out that if he played outside four hours each day he'd have 16 hours of screen time saved up! Now THAT's awesome. Because it's math too. And trend analysis. And and and.
And all this time, I was able to focus on writing a blog post. I didn't take a nap but I don't need one: my kids played outside a lot today and didn't suck my soul dry. They will come in happy and refreshed and tonight they'll sleep so well. And on the next rainy day when all we want to do is nest and watch Star Wars or play Minecraft, there will be no guilt, no grief, and no Gollum. Because those little $hitz will have earned every precious minute. And that is Failblog awesome.
Thanks to Josh Malkin, who convinced me to write this down. Nice!
Thanks to Steve Tait for the blog name. Calling my verbal diarrhea "The Carverian Sublime" was, I now realize, his kind way of telling me I was full of shit.
We had TV. They have the internet. And it is crack.
OK... disclaimer. I am as guilty as the next person for paying attention to my phone when I should be paying attention to my kids. It's not all the time, but it happens, and they notice. Like when Théo says he wants to show me something really awesome (he's seven - most of the time whatever he's peddling is awesome to exactly one person in the house) and I say okay, he'll start in on whatever his cardboard box is doing. I watch for about 2 seconds and then my eye catches the next Failblog post, which often is pretty awesome. And then there's another. And soon I hear from a distant corner of my mind "Dad!? Are you watching?" Nope. I'm not. Because most of the time Failblog does awesome better than my son.
So am I the best example? No. And that's why the topic of today's blog post is all about motivating your kids when you can't even motivate yourself. Because the internet is an awesome, powerful thing. And I needed a tool.
Children 2 to 5 years of age should have no more than one hour of screen time a day, according to the American Association of Pedriatrics (AAP). We're in Canada, but we live a lot like Americans here so I figure that's a reasonable authority. For older kids, the AAP recommends that parents decide what's right. Well, thanks for the help AAP. Four years at one hour a day (two to five equals four - check my math yourself) easily escalates into every freaking minute possible at six years old. It's like giving a heroin addict just one hit a day for four years straight and then saying hey - use your judgment. Peace out.
Because what the AAP says fails to recognize that screen time for kids is addictive. For the parents. That's right. Even well-meaning, engaged parents get tired and bored of seven-year old awesomeness. And daddy's little helper is a 3x6 inch screen with talking cats. And it goes forever if you let it. Want a nap? "You can play for half an hour." If you've waited five years for a nap, that nap's gonna last more than 30 minutes, because Talking Tom makes it possible. Need to focus on writing your blog post? Bam! Candy Crush! Go! And on and on.
The screen creates silence, and parents crave silence.
So as parents we recognized that we needed some rules... mostly for ourselves. Our first attempt was a straight-up one-hour-a-day limit. But damn it if Star Wars wasn't more than an hour long. So no movies? That's crazy talk. And repression leads to rebellion or sneaking (another post about that to come... maybe), so it's not a long-term solution.
So we started to let the kids bank time. Only use 30 minutes today? You get 90 minutes tomorrow. And so on. But that had its own set of problems: Théo (7, remember) would crush his screen time while Mom and Emma slept in until 9 every day. We homeschool, so they can do that. It works, so put your little judgy-face away. So Théo's bank was always empty and Emma (12) ended up using that as a way to passive-agressively torment him. After school she'd play a video game knowing he wasn't even allowed to watch. Because of the rule, right? If they were on the same schedule it would be easier but they're not and it's hard for a seven-year-old to get that. And it's hard to expect him to be able to discipline himself when he's the one who wakes up the sleepyheads every morning.
The hour-a-day rule, even with banking, also didn't take into account the fact that Théo leads a much more active life than his sister. Need help weeding? He's the wheelbarrow master. Mowing the lawn? He's (almost scarily) following you around with an empty stroller or bike trailer. Emma may not be on her iPod, but she's on her butt.
So we needed a rule that took all of this into account. And we got one. And it's awesome. Failblog awesome; not seven-year-old's cardboard box awesome.
The kids wake up each day with one hour of screen time to use as they wish. They can bank it if they want, or they can crush it before breakfast. That doesn't change. What's new is that they can earn more screen time by - wait for it - going outside. Every hour outside gets 15 minutes of bankable/useable screen time. Four hours outside means you've doubled your screen time for the day.
Ok you say... sounds like an idea... maybe even a good idea...but is it an awesome idea?
Yes. It is. Because Théo has more screen time now than he knows what to do with and he doesn't use it. He still fills that hour every morning like he always did. And then he makes himself go outside. And then he doesn't come in.
If you've ever had a gym membership you'll recognize yourself here. You were going to get fit, and you paid for that membership and - for those first few weeks - you were rock solid. Four times a week of turning money into muscle. Yeah! And then by about week five you remember that pints are $3 on Thursdays and hey... everyone's going. And the next week Game of Thrones is on. It's not that you dislike going to the gym. In fact, you really like it. But the hardest part is getting off the couch. Shoes, clothes, drive, ugh. But if you get to the gym you kill it, and when you get home afterwards you feel great and you're more likely to pass on the Pringles.
Kids are no different. Whatever they're doing takes less effort than what they're not doing. But when they have to stop what they're doing (screen time) and know they can get more by taking a few easy steps like getting dressed and playing at the park they just do it. But there's no one hour park rule. So after one hour they don't rush back in to play Zelda because it takes more effort than just staying at the park, which is suddenly a lot of fun. They stay outside and rack up that bank time. And they force themselves to figure out how to have fun outside.
And they love the rule, because they control it. "I want more screen time" now equals "I want to play outside." So they agitate to get out there. That's new for us.
Getting them to drive the outside time is just one benefit. There's also the benefit of them learning about saving, and delaying gratification. Théo was so pumped when he saved up 10 hours of screen time. He was thinking ahead three days and figuring out that if he played outside four hours each day he'd have 16 hours of screen time saved up! Now THAT's awesome. Because it's math too. And trend analysis. And and and.
And all this time, I was able to focus on writing a blog post. I didn't take a nap but I don't need one: my kids played outside a lot today and didn't suck my soul dry. They will come in happy and refreshed and tonight they'll sleep so well. And on the next rainy day when all we want to do is nest and watch Star Wars or play Minecraft, there will be no guilt, no grief, and no Gollum. Because those little $hitz will have earned every precious minute. And that is Failblog awesome.
Thanks to Josh Malkin, who convinced me to write this down. Nice!
Thanks to Steve Tait for the blog name. Calling my verbal diarrhea "The Carverian Sublime" was, I now realize, his kind way of telling me I was full of shit.
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