Ok, so here we are again in the summertime!! It is a beautiful time of year. Kids are home, enjoying a nice break from school. It's time for them to relax and chill. But what happens when their chillin involves hours and hours of screen time each day? How much is too much? Do we as parents ban screen time completely? Or limit it? Do we keep them super busy with other things? Let's dive in and see what we can figure out.
Show Notes
Ok, so here we are again in the summertime!! It is a beautiful time of year. Kids are home, enjoying a nice break from school. It's time for them to relax and chill. But what happens when their chillin involves hours and hours of screen time each day? How much is too much? Do we as parents ban screen time completely? Or limit it? Do we keep them super busy with other things? Let's dive in and see what we can figure out.
Consider how you manage your families technology:
Every family is different. Your schedules are different. Consider:
- What works well and what is currently working?
- Model the technology restrictions you expect from your kids.
- Screen time limits, will you limit by the day or by the week? Will they have things they have to do before they get on?
- Setting priorities for the day, instead of monitoring minutes, could be the secret to summer happiness, thanks to less time spent nagging, pulling your hair out, and feeling guilty.
- Each kid is different. Some of your teenagers may have a job, sports, or camps. Their downtime might be screen time.
Seek Balance:
- As you consider a new strategy for managing summer screen time over the summer, it’s important to seek balance. An outright ban on technology in the home can be frustrating to every family member.
- Is it screen time or downtime?
Know the difference between active and passive screen time:
- Are they just playing a non-productive game or watching a mindless tv show or YouTube videos? Or are they learning something? Important to know the difference and recognize it with our kids. It's easy to see them on a screen and tell them to get off, but what are they really doing?
- Search out ways that they can learn on their screen. That's a win-win.
Be ok with the occasional binge.
- Sometimes our kids are busy from morning to night and others where they have total down time. That's ok for them to be able to chill for a day.
Links
- https://techsavvymama.com/2017/05/managing-summer-screen-time.html
Lemonade moment of the week:
The boys are away at camp. Miss them but get to spend time with Madeline one on one.
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What is Where's the Lemonade??
They say when life gives you lemons you should make lemonade. Making lemonade is not always easy or possible. For us, we found ourselves single in our 40's with kids at home and starting life over again. Luckily we found each other, online no doubt. When we began blending families, schedules, traditions, and laundry, we discovered lots of lemons. Our podcast is a reflection on how we get through the hard times and enjoy the good times on our new journey together, all with ten kids in tow. Sometimes when life gives you lemons, you make lemon squares. Lemonade might come later.