How did your family's limits on things like screen time & sugar end up working out?Parent of Adults Mailbag #2 📬✨
Welcome to the second edition of the Mailbag, in which we bring our collective wisdom to bear on a fellow subscriber’s question.
Rebecca of Your House Machine has young kids and would like to hear from parents of young adults looking back. She wonders: For parents who set limits around things like screen time and sugar, how did this play out long term? Are you glad you did it the way you did?
I would have loved to have a way to ask this question when my kids were little. This was the impetus for my blog, Parent Hacks, in 2005, though it was geared toward a community of peers rather than the diverse range of ages and experience we have here.
My experience of screen time limits is complicated by timing. When my kids were little, iPads/iPhones and streaming media weren’t a thing; it was TV, DVDs, computers, and video games (console, like the Wii). We had geography on our side — there were no devices in bedrooms, pockets, or backpacks. The only portable screen was a handheld Gameboy, which we kept in our possession till “game time.” Screen time limits were the #1 source of fights in our house for years. And let me tell you, they were fights. While I don’t think I’d change how we set our time-based rules, I do regret my dismissive attitude. I wrote videogames off as mindless entertainment. In fact, they were an important source of joy, comfort, intellectual stimulation, musical inspiration and conversation fodder for my son. I didn’t understand at the time how my low-key disparagement disrespected that and backed him into a defensive corner. A less judgmental approach would have opened up more creative ways to set limits, and surely would have reduced the contention. To this day Sam plays videogames with friends and is generous with the details about the rules and the industry. I’m a better listener now. I’m grateful he kept giving me chances to learn and do better.
As for sugar, we were relatively neutral, but my kids still needle me about my disdain for soda (or pop, depending on where you live). When they were growing up I refused to buy it and nixed beverages in restaurants, too. So expensive, and it’s mostly ice anyway! Ruins your appetite and your teeth! Even now, I can barely restrain an eyeroll when one of them orders a drink. I’m annoying, I know. That said, I’m glad I was and still am a hardass about soda. My kids aren’t in the habit of drinking it. When they do, they have to pay for it, which is its own built-in limit. Enough about me! How about you? If you knew then what you know now… 📬✨ Got a question for the hive mind? Send it in! See the Parent of Adults Mailbag FAQ for details.
|
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
How did your family's limits on things like screen time & sugar end up working out?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
30 buy ratings later, SpaceX is down 12%
Plus: crypto has lost its cool ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
-
On Monday, Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected Bear Warriors United's request for a temporary injunction to halt the s...
-
Police say information from a Reddit tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University provi...
-
The Trump administration has launched a new federal initiative called the U.S. Tech Force, aimed at hiring about 1,000 engineers and t...
No comments:
Post a Comment