Screen time. Something I think about way too much, and my kids think about even more. Yes, it is nice to have a few quiet minutes to get things done while the kids play on their iPads, but when does it become too much? Every family has their own answer to that question. For us, unmonitored time on their screens leads to very irritable kids – the more they are on their screens, the more they seem to argue. It also leads to extreme complaints of boredom when they are not on their screens, which tells me their childhood imaginations, the funnest part about being a kid, is dying. They show less interest in creative play, crafts, and social interaction, let alone homework. I also find that after extended screen time, my girls have a harder time getting to sleep at night.
On the flip side, it is 2018 and technology is everywhere. If our children are not familiar with electronics, they will not be able to keep up later on, as computers run so many things, are a part of learning at school, and knowledge is a must for a lot of jobs (even McDonald’s workers need to know how to work the computers to take orders!). There are also ways to be creative, learning games, access to homework, educational videos, entertainment (my kids barely watch TV) – so it becomes less of an issue of removing the screens and more of an issue of balancing.
I recently received a device called Circle by Disney – (have you heard of this yet?!) – an amazing edition to our household that I wish I had years ago. You simply plug it in and set it up using the Circle app on your phone or other device. It works through your internet router and allows you to create profiles for each of your kids and assign their respective devices to their account with ease. Each account has a variety of settings, including the content you allow to be viewed, apps you would or would not like to be accessed, various restrictions, and best of all – a daily time limit on how much internet you would like to be used, which can vary depending on the day! It can be changed with a click on the parent’s app, and you can also “reward” extra time if needed. It even has set times, so you can decide how early you would like it to go on, and assign each user a “bedtime” for when their internet time is cut off.
I find this to be a great way to teach my girls how to manage their time, as well as choose wisely what they would like to do with the time, which has started to eliminate the hours spent watching YouTube videos of grown adults opening and playing with toys, among other time wasting videos they used to spend their precious time watching. They also know in advance that they have a cut off after a certain amount of time, and start and end times that are pre-set, so there are no arguments or “just a few more minutes” when time is done, like it used to be when I would announce time is up. Now the devices do it on their own.
You can purchase the Disney Circle in Canada from Amazon HERE – or read more info about the device. It is one of the best investments I have made into the technology within our home. The girls end up putting their iPads down on their own and go find other things to do – sometimes even playing with each other again! And I don’t have to play bad-cop and tell them daily when they have had enough – time also doesn’t get away from me when I don’t have to monitor the time myself. Highly recommended, especially after the info we discovered not too long ago about what children are really watching on YouTube. See our previous article for the full, unbelievable video with details – something every parent that allows their children to freely view videos on YouTube HERE.