Our Kids Do Not Play with Our Phones
This is not a shaming post. I feel like I have to say that.
It seems that we mommies get offended or offend others so easily, and that's not my intention.
It's not a "We do this parenting thing better than you" post.
This is simply how we've chosen to do life around here.
We have three kids.
A 4-year-old son, a 3-year-old daughter, and an 8-month-old baby boy.
And, not one of them has had access to either of our phones. And by access, I mean that they have never been allowed to hold our phones and play games or look at videos either with us sitting near them or in a separate room or at the store to keep them occupied or sitting in the pew at church to keep them quiet. Ever.
They have watched Netflix on the iPad propped on the table a handful of times when our TV wasn't working, and they have sat next to us when we've taken silly pictures or watched an occasional youtube video on our phones together, but their little hands do not have our permission to hold them.
And their little hands get swatted when they grab our phones off counters and try to mess with them. I'm not cool with my kiddo, who has broken countless toys by being too rough, having access to phones that cost as much as they do. My gosh, are they made out of precious jewels??
It seems that we mommies get offended or offend others so easily, and that's not my intention.
It's not a "We do this parenting thing better than you" post.
This is simply how we've chosen to do life around here.
We have three kids.
A 4-year-old son, a 3-year-old daughter, and an 8-month-old baby boy.
And, not one of them has had access to either of our phones. And by access, I mean that they have never been allowed to hold our phones and play games or look at videos either with us sitting near them or in a separate room or at the store to keep them occupied or sitting in the pew at church to keep them quiet. Ever.
They have watched Netflix on the iPad propped on the table a handful of times when our TV wasn't working, and they have sat next to us when we've taken silly pictures or watched an occasional youtube video on our phones together, but their little hands do not have our permission to hold them.
And their little hands get swatted when they grab our phones off counters and try to mess with them. I'm not cool with my kiddo, who has broken countless toys by being too rough, having access to phones that cost as much as they do. My gosh, are they made out of precious jewels??
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Study after study after study has been released saying screentime before a year old and too much of it after that has been linked to delayed speech and the rewiring of young brains. That's scary to me.
And if you have no interest in reading those, this might catch your eye. All screenshots below are taken from this link.
And if you have no interest in reading those, this might catch your eye. All screenshots below are taken from this link.
There were so many more screenshots I wanted to share, but those should be eye-opening enough. Seriously, read the article; it's not long, but it's fascinating. And frightening. No wonder there are SO many diagnoses of ADHD these days.
Neither Jack nor Ella were allowed to watch any screens (TV or phones) before they turned 2, much to the chagrin of many a family member. Then, when we did start allowing it, it was only 30 minutes of screentime each day. They've now increased to 45 minutes to an hour of screentime in the affternoons after Ella's nap while they eat a snack, and then they head outside to run and jump and play. But that's the max amount of time I'm comfortable with unless there are extenuating circumstances.
And, that point above about screens before bed? It has me rethinking my own FB feed scrolling and email checking before bed. I'll be reading a book the half hour before I go to sleep, so I can practice what I preach, haha. What are we doing to our own brains??
Neither Jack nor Ella were allowed to watch any screens (TV or phones) before they turned 2, much to the chagrin of many a family member. Then, when we did start allowing it, it was only 30 minutes of screentime each day. They've now increased to 45 minutes to an hour of screentime in the affternoons after Ella's nap while they eat a snack, and then they head outside to run and jump and play. But that's the max amount of time I'm comfortable with unless there are extenuating circumstances.
And, that point above about screens before bed? It has me rethinking my own FB feed scrolling and email checking before bed. I'll be reading a book the half hour before I go to sleep, so I can practice what I preach, haha. What are we doing to our own brains??
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Our current thinking is that our kids will be at least driving age before having access to smart phones of their own and possibly not until they're older depending on their maturity. And that's our prerogative and our job as parents. We make the hard choices based on the knowledge we have at any given time and what we have going on in our lives.
The whole reason I began to write this post to begin with was because of something my friend Sarah shared the other day. This article got me thinking about our own technology choices for our kids. We all think our kids won't be "the one" that the news is talking about. That they won't be the ones targeted by sexual predators or cyberbullied. We think that fun apps like Snapchat and musical.ly are pretty safe, but you only have to look at how easy it is to "follow" someone on Snapchat or "friend" someone on musical.ly and pretend you are 10 years old and a "friend of a friend." I think in every one of those cases, those kids' parents thought their kids were safe.
It's hard.
Parenting is hard, in general.
Parenting in a digital age is harder.
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The whole reason I began to write this post to begin with was because of something my friend Sarah shared the other day. This article got me thinking about our own technology choices for our kids. We all think our kids won't be "the one" that the news is talking about. That they won't be the ones targeted by sexual predators or cyberbullied. We think that fun apps like Snapchat and musical.ly are pretty safe, but you only have to look at how easy it is to "follow" someone on Snapchat or "friend" someone on musical.ly and pretend you are 10 years old and a "friend of a friend." I think in every one of those cases, those kids' parents thought their kids were safe.
It's hard.
Parenting is hard, in general.
Parenting in a digital age is harder.
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Sometimes I wish smart phones weren't so accessible even to adults.
How often have you had ten minutes of quiet time only to fill it by staring at a bright screen in your hands or in front of you?
How many times have kiddos been ignored because something in our hands is more important?
How many times have we missed what was being said around us in social settings because the social media app sent us notifications that our online buddies wanted to chat?
Too many to count probably.
We all know these things. We know the truth. And, we'll keep doing it because it's an addiction. Our brains have been trained to give us those good feelings when a notification pops up on our phones. We get a little shot of happiness, and we don't want to give that up.
I've started doing a social media fast Saturday night to Sunday night, and I'm not going to lie. It was really rough to begin with. Realllllly rough. What I found helped some was turning off those notifications because every time I saw the little red notification on the FB app increase in number my instinct was to open the app up and see what was happening. So, I went into "settings" and shut that option down. Now, I stay pleasantly oblivious to any notifications until I'm ready to get back onto social media. And it's made staying away so much easier!
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All of this to say that no one is perfect. No one is parenting perfectly. No one is making great choices every single day. We screw up daily. But hopefully, we are learning from our mistakes and learning from the mistakes of others. Hopefully, we're open to learning new things to do better for our ourselves and for kids. 💚❤️💙
How often have you had ten minutes of quiet time only to fill it by staring at a bright screen in your hands or in front of you?
How many times have kiddos been ignored because something in our hands is more important?
How many times have we missed what was being said around us in social settings because the social media app sent us notifications that our online buddies wanted to chat?
Too many to count probably.
We all know these things. We know the truth. And, we'll keep doing it because it's an addiction. Our brains have been trained to give us those good feelings when a notification pops up on our phones. We get a little shot of happiness, and we don't want to give that up.
I've started doing a social media fast Saturday night to Sunday night, and I'm not going to lie. It was really rough to begin with. Realllllly rough. What I found helped some was turning off those notifications because every time I saw the little red notification on the FB app increase in number my instinct was to open the app up and see what was happening. So, I went into "settings" and shut that option down. Now, I stay pleasantly oblivious to any notifications until I'm ready to get back onto social media. And it's made staying away so much easier!
~~~~~~~~~~
All of this to say that no one is perfect. No one is parenting perfectly. No one is making great choices every single day. We screw up daily. But hopefully, we are learning from our mistakes and learning from the mistakes of others. Hopefully, we're open to learning new things to do better for our ourselves and for kids. 💚❤️💙
I think you are very wise to keep the smartphones away from the children and to limit their TV time. I, too, need to step away from the computer and have been doing that. I found myself sitting in front of it for waaaay too long most days and not getting anything else done! Addictions are hard to break! Keep up the good work and continue to do what you feel is right for your babes. Love you.
ReplyDeleteLove you, too! And thanks for supporting our decisions :)
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