Restricting your kid's screen time, how do you do it?

In My Humble Opinion
21

From your posts he seems like a good kid. You say that his chores and homework are getting done and that he participates in extracurricular activities during certain periods throughout the year. So can you share why, specifically, you want to limit his screen time?

You also mention that you used to spend time hanging out with friends when you were his age. Is this the reason you want to limit his time, so he hangs out with friends more? I don’t have children but I have (and currently do) lived with kids and things are different now days. My roommate’s son is 16 and very outgoing, when I first moved in I wondered why he didn’t hang out with his friends all that much. I soon realized they were hanging out: On X-Box live. Not to mention the time they spent together chatting on the phone or through text or on the internet. My roommate’s son seems to be similar to your brother, he does what he needs to do and then he spends time playing video games or talking on the phone. I 'm not sure I see the problem with that.

22

It’s your brother, so that’s an issue, but for my daughter, the rule is simple:

All electronics, even game systems, belong to Dad. You use them at his discretion. Mom has power of attorney. If a game system is given to you, Dad will claim it.

Don’t like it? That’s fine… that’s what being a grown-up is about, making your own decisions and making the decisions your own kids aren’t mature enough to make. In 10 or so years, it’s all up to you. But now, at the age of 9?

It’s up to me.

23

So is he your kid or your brother? I notice a lot of responses in this thread referring to “your son.” How old are you? Are you two close in age?

24

No TV in his room. (There is a computer in his room.) Only one TV in household. He’s 16, he never watched much except movies until the last couple of years when he sneaks in South Park and Family Guy. The TV is in a public area but he’s limited by the fact that there’s not that much he wants to watch, and he’s third in line behind me and his father. (Mostly me, because his dad just doesn’t want to watch that much except sports, and then he quite naturally goes to sleep as anybody would, watching football, unless they had a small bet on the game.)

25

A fifteen-year old kid is getting two hours a day split among the computer, television and PS3? Damn…

ya rly

I’m barely more than a child, so feel free to disregard my advice, but if he’s doing great with chores and schoolwork I don’t see why you should limit what he does with his free time at all. He’s earned it.

26

Wow - I must be rotting my kids’ brains. They are 6 and 10 so we have a schedule, but that is more to prevent fights and establish a schedule than to limit time. It just works out that time is limited because there are only so many hours in the day - they both get about an hour and I let them go over if they are almost done with a game or their show has 10 more minutes. My main issue is that homework gets done, we don’t game/TV during dinner (family talk time) and we bathe and have a little time for reading before bed. Other than that, I really don’t stress on it.

Is this a really bad kid that needs such strict limits or something? It’s your house, and how you run it is totally up to you, but I really think the time limits are quite severe. At 15 I wouldn’t care what time he went to bed or if he gamed all night until I saw a decline in schoolwork or bags under his eyes and he refuses to self correct. All I would care about is that he gets up for school, stays awake during school and keeps his grades up. And do it without attitude, mister. I’m not completely “rule free” but by 15 I expect my boys to be learning that they can control just how sleepy they will be by staying up too late and take corrective action of going to bed a little earlier to avoid it. My parenting philosophy is pretty carefree, but based on the idea that I’m not going to college with them so they need to be figuring this shit out now (said in a much nicer way, of course).

If it sounds like I am uninvolved, I’m not. I try to involve myself plenty in classroom volunteering and after school activities they are interested in (lacrosse and scouts). They have the afternoon schedule for the computer/TV to avoid fighting and use as a guideline so when I say “it’s bath time, because it’s 7:00” it is so they have a routine, but I refuse to micromanage.

27

It sounds like he is getting all of the necessary stuff done and then hanging with his friends online. I am not sure I see the problem. However, if you want him to get out more, maybe look into getting him a part time job to limit his time at home, thereby limiting his screentime. That may help the problem of lying around all day during the summer and on the weekends.
I will say though that at 15, I think it is to the point where you should let him limit himself. At 5, yes, sceentime may affect his ability to focus, etc. and should be a genuine concern. At 15, it is not as much of an issue, especially since he is actually socializing during that time.

If you are truly worried, set him up with a job or after school activity year round. You say he does wrestling? So he must be at least a little active.

It seems to me that by the time he gets home from practice, does his homework, does his schores, fits in dinner etc., his screentime will already be limited.

I guess what I am saying is that if you really want to limit his screentime (which at his age may be a little silly, just IMHO) fill his spare time with other activities and then let him do what he wants with his free time.

28

A few more things to clear up:
Yes, he’s my brother. I am raising him and have been since 2006. I am 17 years older (33).
Yes, he’s 15, but socially and emotionally he’s more like 2-3 years younger; this isn’t an “oh, all teenage boys are like that” sort of thing, but an official diagnosis.
The basis of this rule, for me, is that I don’t think it’s in his best interest, in terms of socialization, attitude and attention span, to get sucked into the PS3 for hours on end. For my husband, I think he’s mostly just not able to listen to the chatter on the headset for hours at a stretch. (Maybe I need to give in more on the time, but after we soundproof his room?)

overlyverbose, you bring up a good point about the chores. I don’t know if he has what is considered “enough.” He has less than I did at his age in some respects (we raised and trained dogs and had a horse, so some of that was lifestyle related), but definitely has more useful chores (e.g., he is responsible for washing and folding his own laundry)!

racelellogram, I appreciate your post, but think you leapt to a lot of conclusions–including calling me a controlling tyrant on the basis of ONE rule. Additionally, nowhere in my original post or anything since I have said my issue was about porn or the content of what he’s viewing.

While I get that you think my expectations are ridiculous, they’re not a “freakout.” They’re expectations that have been clearly and repeatedly shared with my brother. To that end, I’m also not interested in being more lenient just because, as you suggest, his friends are on the PS3 for 16 hours a day. I’m glad he is able to use the game to interact with his friends, but I’m just not willing to let it be that all-consuming on an every day basis. Having said that, I’m also in no way in denial about how much of our lives our online. But he’s not spending ten hours a day online watching movies, reading books, interacting on Facebook, browsing Wikipedia, updating Twitter or any of a million other things. He’s mostly playing Call of Duty or watching YouTube videos about the same game.

ShelliBean, you don’t sound uninvolved at all, and I appreciate your post. As I noted at the top of this post, his age is a bit of a misleading fact–though, you and others are right that if he’s off to college in 3-4 years, he will need to be able to make these judgment calls about prioritizing time himself. I think this isn’t necessarily a matter of us being particularly strict as parents, just that different kids respond differently to things and have different needs. In general, he tends to be a kid that needs and appreciates a lot of structure (see my earlier point about doing his homework first thing because that’s how he’s just always handled it). Obviously, in this instance, he’s not so appreciative of the structure, but I don’t know if that alone makes it a lost cause.

Again, even if I didn’t specifically mention your post, I appreciate the various parents checking in and sharing what works for them.

29

Question is: do you have authority over your brother?

30

lol

31

I was a teenager not that long ago, and I understand why you would want to help him improve his social skills, but making him log hours and creating a spread sheet seems awfully punitive.

I think a more positive approach would be adding to his responsibilities rather than restricting his free time. So for example, instead of limiting his free time maybe you could ask that he pick a place and spend a few hours a week volunteering.

If I were to put myself in his place, I would be awfully resentful of the fact that I was basically fulfilling all the requirements you had for me (chores, homework, school activities), yet I still wasn’t allowed to spend my time doing things I enjoy.

Also, you mention that you moved. This can be hard on anyone, especially if he is a couple of years behind socially. He may be holed up in his room because he is too nervous or shy to try and make new friends right now. I don’t think this is something that can be forced. Perhaps when he goes back to school in a couple of weeks he will gradually meet new people and will spend less time in front of the screen. And remember that technology is the only way he can access the friends he left behind and he probably misses them and wants to stay connected.

32

moi, the boy’s 15. He’s old enough to have sex. He can almost drive. He can join the military in less than three years. He’s not a little kid. He’s fulfilling his responsibilities just fine, by your own report. There’s no good reason to restrict his game time.

It sounds to me like you simply don’t like his hobby. You want him to do something useful, fun, and enriching…you know, like your hobby. But in reality, his gaming is equally enriching to him. You should just let him be.

I don’t think you recognize how important gaming is to young men. It’s an important cultural experience, just like learning the rules to baseball or football. It’s a social activity. When he goes to school, he talks about these games with his friends just like a book club talks about books. It’s a bonding activity, too. He and his best buddy will, in ten years time, reminisce about that time they held their own in TF2 just like others will talk about their high school trips. And it’s a memory maker. When he’s forty, he’ll find a box in the attic with some of his old games and he’ll remember what it was like “wasting” those summer days during his youth just like our fathers do when they see their childhood bat and glove.

I think you’re overestimating the harm and vastly underestimating the benefit of letting him play all day.

33

My husband and I are raising him. There are no other parents, no other decision makers, etc, if that’s what you’re asking.

34

Not a parent, but I suggest a big steamy mug of lighten the hell up. The kid is 15. He could be smoking dope and knocking up the neighbor’s daughter. Let the kid play his games whenever he wants, as long as he keeps his grades up.

35

moi, I’m an introvert with an official social anxiety diagnosis. This thread sounds a lot like me as a teen.

He’s a socially immature gamer from the sounds of it. These days, socially immature geeks often meet together online. Forcing him to go out and socialize with teens who probably don’t share his interests - like jocks or preppies - isn’t going to make it better for him. He already feels like those people are part of another world.

Encourage him to make gamer friends in your current city. Take him to the video game store - those are his people!

And remember - talking with his old buddies while gaming on the PS3 is the guy equivalent of a teen girl monopolizing the phone line gossiping. Would you be as upset if he was on the phone with them instead? Think about it as being the same thing.

36

I can see this, but without the log we’re left with vague senses of how much time he’s spending and he’s left with an even more abstract idea of how much time has passed in game. I’ve played computer games, too, and expect almost anyone who’s done so has the sensation of “Wait, it’s been five hours?” or “The sun’s coming up already?!” I know some parents can work with this and, whenever they’re at their limit, just randomly say, “Go play outside! Do something else!” but, in his world, that’s far more confusing and chaotic than knowing he has a set limit that we’ve both discussed.

Also, to the surprising number of people who felt the screen time allotted was significantly low–we were basing the number on studies on the effect of screen time WRT school, mental and physical health and socialization. He also has the opportunity to earn additional hours in other ways (eg, 50 pages of reading = 1 hour screen time).

This is only true in as much as I wish for him to have multiple outlets and interests. My hobbies are painting and knitting and reading and building web sites and hiking and going to museums and playing board games and watching movies and updating my Twitter. If the power’s out and I can’t do the stuff online, I do one of the other things in my bag of interests. If my brother runs out of screen time, he goes to sleep because he’s bored and doesn’t know what else to do with himself. I have no desire for him to pick up knitting needles at that moment (that would involve sharing my yarn stash!), but I’d like to think he could do something else other than give up and go to bed.

I appreciate your perspective, but I think you might be reading too much of yourself into my brother. Yes, he has some social awkwardness and I expect things are especially rough because he only has one year in with this school and social group (we moved last summer), but he’s also on the wrestling and track teams (does that make him the jock?) and shops pretty exclusively at places like Abercrombie (which, to this hippie punk, makes him the preppy!). I definitely see his time on CoD as the same as the stereotypical teenage girl being on the phone–and, though perhaps mistaken, my expectation was that after three hours of teen chatter on the phone, parents would also say, “Time’s up! Do something else! Anything!”

I know that meeting new people and socializing is hard; both my husband and I moved during HS, too. It’s never been my intention to tear him away from his old friends, and we definitely respect and appreciate those relationships (he spent 10 days this summer back in Florida with them, FWIW). I just feel like, at this juncture, giving him unlimited screen times doesn’t give him the opportunity (or force the opportunity, if you prefer) to have additional interests and meet new people.

Again, thanks to everyone who’s posted. It’s been eye opening to see that no other parent of a teen has checked in with a similar story, so maybe we are more strict than I realize.

37

We use similar tactics to those listed in this thread. One kid self-polices pretty well, the other would hop from screen to screen to screen for every hour of waking consciousness for the rest of his life if we let him.

Thing is, most of it is active, he’s not just watching the Electric Babysitter, drooling, on the couch. The Xbox is limited to 2 hours a day for the family, the DS’s are handed out when asked, as is the iPad and access to the homework laptop.

We may end up being more permissive than some in this thread (sometimes they get 3 or 4 hour stretches where they get to do whatever they want) but they also have fully screen free days, too.

By the time I was 12 I had an Atari 2600 in my room, a TI 99-4/a the next year, and a PC-XT in my room at 15, and it’s access wasn’t regulated at ALL.

I ended up making a pretty good career out of it.

38

I somehow doubt that. The more I read, the worse I feel .

At the moment I am on the laptop in the dining room, the two boys are in the living room watching Disney XD. We are all eating and within each other’s line of vision, and there are intermittent dance and karate breaks and the whole time we are talking to each other. Today we’ve been talking about the hurricane - and trust me, it’s not a deep conversation.

Anyway - more to the point and to moi: I will, of course, defer to your judgement because you are the one who has been raising him for the last few years. I haven’t, so take this with a grain of salt. I appreciate that you have set limits on what you’ve come across as professionally recommended. I think that’s great - in theory. One thing about kids is that sometimes you have to say fuck it when it comes to professional guidelines (note: I am not talking about vaccines or medical care!) and do what works for your kid. This is not working for you.

They are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. A lot of that starts when they are much younger and you didn’t get that advantage. It’s kind of like knowing you need to make your own steamed carrots for your baby food then saying “Oh. Dear. God. He will not quit screaming just let him gnaw on the damn rib bone!” You know the studies suggest two hours per day. Maybe your kid/brother is not a kid that works with.

Finally, one of your motivations for cutting the screen time is to get him involved with other things. If his reaction is to go to bed, then your motivation really isn’t being satisfied. If he is needing structure, maybe a schedule is the way to go? Nothing formal - he doesn’t sound like a kid that formal works with. But some basic guidelines of: “homework done by 5:00” (which he will finish since he already does that and yay! part of the schedule is done already!) and “dinner at 6:30” and “7:00 - 10:00 free time” and see where it goes. Forget the logging hours. Hanging out as a teen shouldn’t feel like creating TPS Cover Sheets. Don’t worry about knowing exactly how long he’s been on every day. You can tell him that the times are a little fluid and flexible, but the only hard and fast rule is that you want the TV/computer off by 10:00 or 11:00 or whatever you decide. That way you don’t have to micromanage it.

Finally, I would suggest maybe once a month letting him pick a weekend he can game for a lot longer. I don’t do RPGs but I understand they put together campaigns that can take a while. Maybe if he has once a month he can hole up and go through a campaign he’ll feel like he really getting a treat and won’t fight so hard against the daily stuff?

Like I said, you are raising him and I’m not. These are just things that ran through my head.

39

Ah, okay. I’m not sure how to motivate him to meet new people then.

40

In the summer, my son got “Wii tickets” for completing reading/workbook/math activities or extra (big) chores. Those tickets were worth 30 mins ea but he could only spend 4 max in a day. That equaled two hours of screen time. It was also 95+ degrees out most of the end of summer, so it worked out for me just fine. :smiley:

Now that school’s in session, he’s limited to an hour. His homework takes about 30-40 minutes. I read to him for 20 minutes a night and he plays Hebrew games on my computer before bed (which doesn’t count). He also takes a bath almost every night. We’re home at 4 and he goes to bed at 8, so he stays busy.

Friday nights there’s no screen at all, but Saturdays and Sundays I’m pretty lax. He’s on the Wii right now and hasn’t left the living room in two hours. Hell yeah he can veg out one day a week! Look at what I’m doing here.

If you don’t want your brother to be on screen, take the charger/cord/whatever from him and give it back when he is permitted to use it.

I think older kids should have more ‘screen time’ because it’s not like they’re going to be building with Legos or whatever. Especially interactive p2p games.