Gaming Kids - Limits and Freedom

I worked on the title of this post for longer than I care to admit, and I'm intensely annoyed at myself that my last published entry was 14 full days ago. Such things can't be helped however, as my wife is training for a promotion that she won't receive or get paid for until next summer, my car received a certificate of imminent and expensive death, and my youngest daughter's hockey practices began two weeks ago. Let's just say shit got real. Annie says it best.

I made a tweet a while ago that got a few responses from other parents, and I wanted to expand on it. As a gamer, I play a lot of video games on the PC and my iPad. As a stay at home dad I'm watching Hulu or Amazon, and using Stitcher to listen to podcasts while I'm cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc. This doesn't bother me much, but it rubs off on my girls (6 and 4) and for a long time I had trouble managing their time in front of a screen of some kind.

If you aren't a parent you may not really get this, which is fine. For those who have ever looked up at the clock and realized in horror that your 3 year old just watched 13 consecutive episodes of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, I feel your pain. I tried so many varieties of managing screen time, but they all failed for various reasons, mostly related to how much effort or complication was involved. Guidelines for screen time have actually changed recently too as the opportunity to interact rather than passively observe. I'm okay with my girls watching shows, playing games, or reading ebooks - but at their age I wasn't cool with them doing it for hours on end.

The idea for management I came up with fits with my parenting style of being available without begin overbearing. I try at every opportunity to provide my girls with small freedoms and choices without overwhelming them. I try to let them fuck up royally while I stand slightly off to the side ready to accept the tears. I'm not the parent who catches their kid falling off the monkey bars, I'm the one who walks over and helps them up after they have fallen off. It is way harder than it sounds, but I think it's worth it.

So, our system is simple. My daughters receive four plastic tokens every day. Each token is worth 30 minutes of screen time. I have no say in when or how they use their tokens with some notable exceptions: meals and homework. The girls use a simple egg timer to start their 30 minutes. If they aren't using a token together, I help with a second timer (watch, microwave, etc.). The tokens reset each evening, and never carry over. Finally and critically, there is no negotiating when the tokens are gone, any complaint or argument for more is ignored.

I got to this (hopefully) final iteration through staggering amounts of trial and error. The reason this has worked so far is that it requires a similar amount of responsibility from both parties without heaping all of the responsibility on me or them. I'm not sure how this system will evolve with age, I've thought about adding more coins as they get older, with the likelihood of releasing them from these limits at a certain age. And one thing I don't like is that it encourages them to use all the tokens every day. Some flaws are expected though, nothing is perfect.

Since parenting is just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, I have no idea what I'm going to do going forward. For now though, my house has peace and acceptance without begging and bargaining when it comes to screen time. You might want to head elsewhere to figure out how to keep them from arguing and fighting though, because I have no effing clue.