Monday...the first day of limiting screen time was marginally successful. As predicted, there was no way for me to monitor the amount of time the kids spend watching television or playing video games. My kids get home from school by about 3:00 p.m. and I need to be working until at least 5:00 p.m. But, the kids did get their homework done before turning on any screens, so that was a good thing.
However, I am beginning to realize that it is nearly impossible to limit screen time to any specific amount. The only really effective method is to turn off the power switch. So today (Tuesday) we are going to try and have a time of day when everything is off...T.V., Computer, Video Games, etc. So from 6-8 p.m. we will be screen free.
That seems pretty good to me since the kids are at school most of the day and they are usually getting off to bed by 9:00 p.m. So rather than try and keep track of screen time, we are going to try and eliminate the screens altogether for a block of time each day.
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Did anybody catch the Oprah show with Peter Walsh a couple weeks ago? It was called Peter Walsh's Stripped Down Family Challenge.
Part of the challenge was for this one family to go 7 days without cell phones, tv, computers etc. It was pretty eye-opening and the pre-challenge tape looked a little familiar with everyone on computers, ipods, ds's and tv. - really disconnected.
We all watched it as a family (an irony that wasn't lost on the kids - "You want us to reduce screen time by MAKING us watch tv??? :) It was encouraging to see how much fun and more connected the family in the show were during and after the challenge.
We decided to spend this week being aware of just how much screen time we normally have and then discuss what our limits will be.
I think we'll probably end up doing a screen free block of time after dinner too because that seems much clearer and easier to follow.
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