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

When I was a kid, my mom used a version of this same rationale, except it was “I’m watching the news and my TV shows, you’re just playing nintendo–and you’re a kid, you should be outside!”

It rang hollow then, it rings hollow now.

My humble opinion? Screen time is screen time, unless it’s homework or work time. There is no difference. I guarantee you HE sees it that way, and if you’re allowing yourself significantly more time to do recreational screen time than you allow him, he’s going to have a valid reason to think you’re being unfair and biased against his particular choice of media rather than looking out for his best interests.

That said, this:

does change the game signficantly. When I was griping about more screen time as a teen, when I was done I’d just grab a book (generally one in the same genre as the games I was playing!) and keep going.

That said, I should point out that when I was that age, a lot of my social life was online, including meeting new people. Heck, I still get into a game and then don’t actually play, just shoot the shit with my college buddies for an hour on voice chat (it’s cheap as free, after all, and lets you all talk at once, unlike that pesky phone system).

Aren’t there software programs that do this? I mean I go to the Chicago Public library and it gives me up to 2 hours a day. There’s even a counter that says, how much time I have left to use the computer

yes, but nothing that tracks Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Wii, TV, Laptop and iPad all together.

Likewise not a parent, but I agree. I was a kid always getting in trouble for ‘wasting too much time on the computer’. And a lot of the time, sure, I was wasting time. But now I work for a software company and all of these skills that I picked up back then still apply.

If I was told I could only spend 3 hours on ‘screen time’ on the weekend today and had to log all of my time, I’d fudge the numbers, too. Now, do I spend more than three hours every weekend day on the computer or TV? Probably not, but it wouldn’t be uncommon. I use the computer for so many daily tasks that it’s unreal, and it’s the hub of my social world. If you count times I’m not actively paying attention, like if I’m playing music or having TV on in the background, my weekend usage (unless I’m out) is pretty high. God help me if “screen time” included the iPhone and iPad, too. :slight_smile:

I get that you don’t want the kid to not have other enriching activities in life, but it seems to me that you’re just expecting him to fill the time himself. It’s probably the beginning of the school year, right? Not much homework to take up the time, but he’s too young to be driving around alone, so I’m assuming he spends a good amount of time at home. If the homework and chores are done but he’s got more than 2 hours left, what’s he doing after the screen time is used up? Do you have an expectation as to how to fill that time?

Nobody likes filling out logs every time they do something fun. It’s joyless. If it were me as a kid, I’d respond much better to something positive – let’s do family stuff together, the TV is off, let’s play board games or go for a walk or some other activity. Otherwise, I was basically just going… okay, what now? I’m too old to play with toys, I don’t have any other chores and my mom doesn’t want me to bug her, I don’t have a car and my friends live too far away to walk, my dad is working… I ended up mostly just re-reading the same trashy books I had sitting around, or wandering around the park by myself. I honestly didn’t find this more enriching than using the computer – substantially less so, in fact. Sure, I played games, but I was also debating politics on BBSes with local people, chatting with online friends, trying to figure out different aspects of software worked and modify programs, etc. – this all before actual Internet access.

Honestly, there’s only one thing I can think of that a 15 year old boy is likely to do that can be done alone in his room without either ‘screen time’ or substance use, and you can probably guess what that is. :slight_smile: You sure he’s sleeping?

This. He’s way too old for this kind of strict limitations. Especially with such a small time limit.

IMHO, who gives a crap if he does the bare minimum (chores and grades)? Is life about doing the bare minimum and then goofing off the rest of the time? Is this the lesson you want your brother to learn - if you just do what have to do, and not a bit more, that’s fine?

Does the kid have a job? I know he’s 15, but he can get a work permit.

Also, as an imho, keeping his PS3 so he can keep in touch with his friends in Florida does nothing to help him make friends in your neck of the woods - retards the process, actually. Maybe the question should be “Is he not developing friendships because I’m allowing it to be too easy clinging to the familiar?”

Regardless of whether he is developmentally slow, there’s nothing wrong with telling a “12 year-old” to turn off the damn TV and games and go outside, and no, you can’t stay in your room.

And since people seem to be chiming this fact in, I am a parent. And this is something we do struggle with. Right now our 9 year-old gets 15 minutes of “screen time” a day, and if she wants more, she has to earn it by doing extra chores, playing with her friends (and not in a go to their house to watch TV - they can swim in our pool), or doing extra studying/reading/piano.

Harsh? Who cares!

I appreciate everyone who found a love of computers and a career out of their unregulated access to computers during their teens, but I’m also hoping my kid doesn’t play CoD professionally in the future. While he loves playing the game and socializing with his friends, he’s never expressed interest in working in the gaming industry.

While this is true, I don’t know that changing the rules gets me there either. I can’t create other interests for him (especially not my own hobbies), but I can at least give him the space to hopefully develop other interests. I do think your idea of giving him a day without limits could be a good reward once we get to a place where he is respecting the existing limits.

This has definitely been our strategy when we’ve caught him breaking the rules and, in the past, have done whole periods of two weeks where he has to “check out” the game from me like you would a book at the library. Because this feels even harsher than having him log hours, we use this as punishment and have tried to avoid it being the status quo.

Zeriel, glad you understand my dilemma a bit. I wasn’t trying to justify any of the online activities as better than others or as being more worthy–either his or mine!–but just giving an example of how this one thing is his main interest, and he struggles to have a backup plan when he can’t do it.

fluiddruid, your last line made me laugh out loud and presents a new and valid perspective on his napping. Admittedly, it’s not something I’d list as a hobby or a social activity (YET), but it’s good and healthy and, honestly, it makes me even feel better about the going to bed thing.

I appreciate how you use computers and what you got out of them, but, again, he’s not that varied in his activities. We chatted about it this morning, and he said he sometimes checks Facebook, but, mainly, his laptop is a device to watch YouTube videos about CoD.

JohnT, thanks for your perspective as a parent, especially understanding that I don’t want to just say, “OK, grades are good, chores are done, my work here as a parent is DONE!” I get that others think that being able to do what he wants after that point is his reward, but we already reward him in many, many, many ways, big and small, for being an awesome student and good kid. Your point about the PS3 keeping him in touch with his Florida friends at detriment to making new friends is one we think on and limiting the screen time is part of us trying to find that balance of sustaining the existing, very important friendships, but also making time for new friends.

For the record, we’ve now been using the Google Spreadsheet for over a week and are still working out the kinks. Overall, though, he says he likes that it adds up the time for him so he can see the time he has used and left and has been making conscious choices about “budgeting” his time so he can play when his friends get home from school (school here has been delayed by Irene, whereas in Florida they’ve been in school for over a week). This is exactly what I’d like to see, and I’m hoping, once he’s also busy in school, we’ll reach a happy balance. This thread has definitely given me a lot to think about how we’ll handle next summer, though.

Actually, you can. This is exactly the sort of thing that teenagers are bad at. The don’t have the perspective or experience to come up with new activities. Just giving them space to find things isn’t enough. They haven’t the slightest clue where to look.

I would recommend finding out what activities are available at his school, and telling him that he needs to join one club/organization/activity. Think newspaper, musical, service organization, green club, and whatever else they have. I’d mandate one sport a year, but it sounds like he’s done that already. You could help him find babysitting or lawn mowing gigs if he’d like extra money. You could look into youth organizations, like Young Life or BBYO and tell him he has to go to a few meetings. You could ask him about karate lessons, see if he’d like to learn to play guitar or another instrument, or find him a gym to join that has rock-climbing and such.

Honestly, this is what I would suggest:

[ul]
[li]Mandate that he participate in X activities.[/li][li]Loosen up the screen time restrictions considerably (maybe to 20-25 hours/week?) as long as he is getting good grades, doing his chores, and participating in activities.[/li][li]Give him long lists of things he could do, and be open to his own suggestions.[/li][li] Provide whatever support he needs to participate in those activities.[/li][/ul]

I’m going to reluctantly agree. Sure, it is easy for some of us, and I include myself, to waste way too much time with TV and games. Way too easy. But it sounds like this kid is learning to prioritize just fine.

If the problem is that you think he should be doing other, more productive things then lead him there. Don’t tell him to go for a hike, take him on a hike (for example). Instead of telling him what he can’t do, tell him what you want him to do.

Edit: Yeah, what **Manda Jo **said. Very good suggestions. We “forced” our son to do a bunch of activites in his teen years. He is thanking us now that he is in his 20s.

My only caveat to Manda Jo’s advice is to be careful. 15 is not an age that takes kindly to being forced into an activity or out of one, so if he ends up choosing some other hobby that’s equally insular and geeky-appearing (or, for that matter, if he ends up in computer programming club or gaming club), I suggest you consider that a compromise win.

I agree with this completely, if that wasn’t clear. You tell him he has to do something, and give him lists of possibilities. Then let him decide.

Honestly, this would probably thrill us. I built my own machine by the time I was his age and currently design web sites; my husband and I met, in part, because of an RPG group.

I definitely think we’re going to recommend/pressure him to join a non-sport activity at school this year, both to deal with the boredom issue and, hopefully, counteract the fact that the two sports he’s joined aren’t team sports in the normal sense and don’t provide the same people skills as, say, being on a basketball team. Even socializing with geeks is socializing. :slight_smile:

For the record, we do this sort of thing and, now that we’re cracking down on the time log and forcing it to reflect reality, he’s much more interested. When he was getting away with playing more hours than allowed, he routinely turned down playing games with us, whereas we’ve now settled into a schedule of Tuesdays being family game night (tonight’s adventure was Freeloader by Cheap Ass Games and I kicked butt :)) and he’s even initiated playing games on the weekend or nights when I’m out and it’s just him and tdc.

I gotta admit, I don’t understand this attitude in context–my understanding was, he’s spending at least part of his PS3 time socializing with his friends.

I think part of the issue is that he is socializing with his friends from Florida, not getting to know anyone new.

As Manda Jo said, it’s partly that clubs/activities will give him the opportunity to be social with people at his current school. Also, it’s the benefit of face-to-face socialization and friendships. While I’m not favoring those over his existing friendships, I would like him to have both.

Obviously (to most people here), I am not a parent. But I was a kid, and I know what would and wouldn’t work for me.

It seems that, unlike most people who would ask this question, you do have well thought-out reasons to limit his screen time. But I still think that you should do away entirely with the logs, and perhaps even with the actual restriction. Focus on promoting the activity you think is good, rather than restricting the one you think is bad.

My suggestion would be to first try to make his screen time more social, or actually bring him places with you where he can interact with other people, and encourage him to do so. I agree that he sounds like he’s somewhat socially anxious. Making it easier to be social will help with that. (I know several kids in my youth group who only communicate electronically.)

Furthermore, you mention a diagnosis, which implies some sort of disorder. Is it possible that lack of social activity plays a part? Is it possible that he’d get along better with younger people, rather than only being with people his own age? I’d do research on the disorder itself, and see how other people have dealt with those problems. Again, if he has a disorder and the disorder plays a part in the problem.

Finally, don’t phrase it as a requirement at first. I know that I preferred gentle encouraging to direct orders. Orders made me stick to the letter of the law. That said, you know your brother better–maybe he prefers orders.

Frankly I don’t see this as a problem, but I was the kind of kid who had maybe two real local friends in high school, and a few dozen guys who I could talk to online.

Granted, I also was pretty sure none of them were actually secret 40 year old pedophiles (in the mid 1990s, anyway, it wasn’t even on the radar), but I wasn’t exactly vulnerable to that in any case.

I can definitely see that. However, prior to our move, his friends were 99% the guys he knew from school, so this shift to having only online friends is a result of our move, not because he necessarily socializes better in that format.

BigT, thanks for your post. It’s weird to feel like the “strict” parent in this thread because we’re so open and communicative about other things, and he doesn’t really live his life in a tiny box we’ve devised for him. If I am strict or at the very least perceived as strict, it’s good to know some people can see the thoughtfulness that has gone into our parenting.

I’m hoping being back in school will resolve some of this and that much of our stress over this issue came from summertime boredom (despite the fact that we tried to provide him with more opportunities and options this summer specifically because we knew he was in a relatively new place). You and others have recommended scrapping the rules entirely, but that’s just not something I’m prepared to do.

This, however, suggests a dynamic that I don’t agree with. Being on the PS3, being on the Internet, etc. are not BAD activities in my mind. It’s just that they’re good in moderation and, without our specific rules, he isn’t motivated to moderate his usage. It’s like ice cream. I WANT ice cream to be part of my life, but it can’t be all I eat.

Finally, I have definitely tried talking to a few other parents raising kids with his condition, but thought I’d try a broader audience for two reasons. One, many of the parents in those groups/lists with teenagers are struggling with parenting a child with much more severe issues, including developmentally, than my brother. So, though their child may be his age, they are still, in effect, using the rules and repercussions more suitable for a child 10 or younger. Also, on that list–as in this thread–most of the parents have younger kids, partially in part to needing the support of the group/list at the point where their child has just received his/her diagnosis. Similarly, most of my personal friends who are parents are in their 30s and, again, are parenting toddlers or younger.