Are your kids always asking for screens?
And do you find yourself
asking the questions "How much screen
time
should a kid have?" Well a lot of people
are
asking me that question. I'm Nicholeen
Peck. I'm a parenting expert,
author and speaker all over the world
about parenting and what makes really
good
strong self-governed families. And in
this video,
we're going to be talking about how much
screen time
children really should have.?
I've never met a child that doesn't like
screens.
In fact, I think all children at some
point or another ask for screens if
they've been exposed to them.
Why is that? Well, it's because screen
time
actually lulls the brain and
stops the hard task of thinking if the
person
allows that hard task of thinking to be
stopped.
So, why would we ever not want to think?
Well, because it's hard work.
In fact, thinking is one of the hardest
things that we ever do.
And sometimes it's really nice to just
have someone do the thinking for us.
Just to tell us a story or take us on a
journey
that we don't have to do any work to go
on.
It kind of feeds our inner laziness just
a little bit.
But is it healthy? Is it healthy to turn
our brains off
or to turn them over to something else
for extended periods of time?
I always told my children that digital
devices
are tools not toys. There is a difference
between those things.
In fact, if you were to carry
a circular saw (say) in your pocket,
you would never just whip it out willy-nilly all the time. You would use a lot
of caution
with that thing. There would be rules and
parameters.
There would be safety measures that you
would take
to make sure that that saw didn't hurt
you
or anybody else. Well, the same thing with
other tools that we have which are cell
phones,
tablets, computers other screens and
digital devices.
They can be used for really great things.
And I'm sure you
know this. We watch things, we communicate
with people,
we learn things. We remind ourselves of
things. We wake up in the morning because
of them.
There's so many things that we can use
those devices for.
But those devices can also use
us. That's right. They can control
us. If we become more casual in our
relationship with devices
and start thinking of them more as a toy
or convenience,
instead of as something that we're
supposed to govern over,
respect and use safety parameters with
to do actual work
then we run the risk of that thing
taking control
and working on us. So, what type of work
do you do on your devices?
You write papers, you possibly do
research?
You send emails to people for
communications.
You might do your banking. Stuff like
that. Those are all things
that show that the devices are meant to
be tools.
But I'm sure you can think of many other
ways like social media
and gaming and other time-wasting things
that people do on these devices which
actually
also show that many people think of them
as toys as well. Well, it's important that
your children
understand the difference between a tool
and a toy
before they ever get the opportunity to
be in charge
of their own screen. In our family, we
have a rule.
That a person does not get the
opportunity to own a digital device
unless they are self-governed. Well, what
is self-governed mean?
Self-government is being able to
determine the cause and effect of any
given situation
and possessing a knowledge of your own
behaviors so that you can control them.
So, this means a person decides ahead of
time "This is how I'll behave".
So, when it comes to a screen, they would
say, "This is how I want to interact with
this tool.
This is the amount of time I will use to
have that interaction.
This is how I'll check up with somebody
else to make sure that i'm interacting
well
with this device." And then they take
deliberate action,
they stick to their time limit or to
their action that they were going to be
doing on the device
and then they're done. Unless a person
knows self mastery in other things,
they're not usually ready to self master
themselves when it comes to their time
with a screen
because that screen can suck them in so
quickly.
So, we have determined that they have to
be really good at what we call
the 4 basic skills. These 5 basic
skills that I teach
in my teaching self-government parenting
course are following instructions,
accepting no answers, accepting
consequences
and disagreeing appropriately. These are
skills that they
use in their communications with
everyone. In fact, all people need these
skills. Their basic, just
adult skills. And if a person learns the
skill sets
to these 4 skills, that takes care of
99%
of their behavior problems. If they are
self-governing with those 4 skills
the majority of the time,
then we know that we can probably start
to teach them
how to self-govern when it comes to
screens.
In order to determine how much time a
person needs
or should have on screens or
in front of a screen, we need to
understand a little bit about the brain.
So, the front part of the brain, the part
that does all the logical processing
also is a key player in discernment
for the person. So, when you get in front
of a screen
and you're allowing the screen to take
you on a journey,
that actually engages primarily your
emotional part of the brain which is in
the middle.
It just takes your emotions up and down
around and through and you don't have to
think very much if you don't want to.
So, it's really easy to disengage
this discerning part of the brain.
The other night, my husband turned on a
movie
and the family all came down and ended
up watching it. Now, we hadn't decided
ahead of time
what movie this would be. When I came
down to the the tv room, I realized
this was a movie that I didn't really
ever want to see and I didn't know much
about.
So, I thought, "Well, i'll give it a chance."
All the children are older.
It's probably something that they can
handle now even though when this thing
came out, I really didn't want any part
of it.
So, we started watching the movie and
I was just kind of getting sucked in for
a minute. But my brain wasn't
totally turning off because I kept
thinking do U really want to watch this?
Do I really? And so, there were a couple
of
key things that happened. A bad word that
happened and then
shortly after there were some other
things that happened related to
what I call bloodlust or extreme
violence.
And I went, "You know what? I cannot watch
this."
All of a sudden my brain just it wasn't
completely complacent yet because I
wasn't sure I trusted the movie.
And then it just told me "no". So, I had
this discernment thing
kick in. If I would not have questioned
anything about the movie
and just gone along for the ride, I'm not
sure I would have had that moment where
I said,
"No, we are not watching this and turning
it off."
But that's what happened, instead because
I did have discernment
and i still was in that thinking part
of my brain. So, it's important for us to
realize how the brain works.
Because if we are allowing our children
to have a whole bunch of time
in front of the screens then we're
actually allowing them
to not discern. That means they won't be
making decisions
based on what's right and wrong very
well. They won't be
thinking clearly. They'll just be going
along for the journey.
And buying into whatever ideas or story
happens to be presented to them at the
time which could be good
or it could not be. Either way though,
the fact that it's so passive and that
they don't have to do
any thinking during that time
means that there really shouldn't be
much time spent
in that sort of a zoned out zone, right?
So, how much screen time then
does a child really need or should they
have
in order to be in that healthy zone? Well,
there's no real hard and fast rule.
I suppose I feel like I would be a bad
parenting expert
if i told you this is exactly how many
hours for this
age because I don't know your child
and I don't know your family life and I
don't know what they're studying
and what sources you're using for
information. I don't know your
business at home. There's a lot of things
I don't know.
But I can tell you my rule of thumb.
Less is better. Less is better. Go
for way less. Less than you think is
healthy
is usually a good gauge. So,
if you think, "Well, a person could watch a
couple of hours a day"
then go less. Go less than that.
Go maybe to ½ a day. Really go
down. Now, our family we made a rule in
our family
that we were not going to be about
screens. We had computers
and we had a TV but that didn't mean we
wanted to be in front of it
all the time. So, before we even had the
type of cell phones that had
smart devices built into them,
we and they could have be their own TVs
and their own screens. We made a rule
and we stuck to that rule throughout our
entire
parenting years with our children. And
the rule was this:
That we would not watch television
or movies unless
they were educational movies that were
part of our home school. Because I was a
homeschool mom.
So, occasionally maybe we might watch a
documentary on the byzantine empire.
Or on Thomas Edison or something like
that.
And those videos might be watched during
the school day sometimes
as part of a lesson or something. But
other than that,
the only other time that we would watch
a show
is on Friday night. As a family, we
watched 1 or 2 movies together
and everyone looked forward to this time.
So, if my children came to me and said, "Oh,
mom. Can I watch a movie?"
I would always answer with, "Well, what day
is it?
Oh, it's Tuesday. Yes, remember our family
only watches movies
on Friday." Then they would turn to their
friend and they'd say,
"See, I told you." Because
of course the friend was wanting to
watch a movie at our house.
And we never watch television, network
television
unless it's like the time of the
Olympics. I mean really truly there are a
couple
of events like the Olympics that are big
like that that we
watched on network television and that
was it. Which is a total irony
because our family actually was on TV.
I've been on how many news programs
and we aren't actually a TV watching
family.
Now, you don't have to be as weird as us,
okay? I know that's really strange.
Especially how most families function.
But
try to think what less means for you.
What is less than you think is healthy?
I know you you've got to have something
in your mind right now that you're
thinking, "Well,
IU was thinking they could probably watch
this one show a day" or
whatever. And so then go less. Maybe it's
only
one show every other day or
something like that. But just make
yourself push it
to less than you think. Don't be thinking
in the direction
that is "How much can I use it?
How much can i put him in front of it
before there's problems?"
No matter when or how long you put a
person in front of a screen,
they will stop fairly quickly
doing their own critical thinking and
they will become passive.
And we don't want people in that
position very long.
Our children need to be confident and
empowered which means they need to do a
lot of their own thinking,
reasoning and problem solving and they
need to be talking to
us during that time of figuring
and discerning. Not getting their
information
from a screen. One of the benefits of
having less screen time
is actually over the long term. Your
children are better behaved.
I don't know if you realize that. Now at
first, when they're breaking away from
screen time, there might be a little
anxiety,
some change in habits some frustration
even some boredom
because they don't know what to do. But
over time, they become much more content,
much more constructive, much more
creative and communicative too.
So, this is a good thing for their
overall health
and behaviors. If you've liked this video,
I think you're going to love my next video
which is called "How do you deal with
temper tantrums?"
