Let’s be honest: screen time is every parent’s frenemy. It is a silent babysitter that costs nothing, is always available, and can be very hard to say no to. In our house, I do say no, LOUDLY and quite often. Because screen time boundaries aren’t just rules in our home, they are values in disguise.
Like most families, we have watched screens move into every corner of childhood: tablets, video games, videos of other kids making millions just playing with toys (don’t even get me started). It’s a slippery slope from “just one show” to full-blown couch potatoes. That’s why in our house the rule is one hour a day, weekends only. We do not allow TV or iPads during the school week. Then, when they are online, the games have limits, and YouTube is only allowed if I can see what they are watching. TikTok, they know better than to ask.
I will be honest, my husband doesn’t totally agree, but I am that mom.
No, I am not living off the grid. I own a phone and computer and use them plenty, but I like to think my brain is fully developed, and I can put them down.
If that makes me uncool in certain fourth-grade social circles, so be it. Yes, they go to friends’ houses where rules are looser, and I consider that a “special occasion.” Trust me I know it would be far easier to hand them a tablet so I could finish a work call or watch a Bengals game in peace, but I want my kids to be bored. I want them to play with dolls, make crafts, and figure out how to entertain themselves without a screen.
My girls have been in Montessori classrooms most of their lives, where screens are rare and imagination and creativity are at the forefront of learning. This year, they are starting public school where Chromebooks are standard issue and “digital learning” is practically its own subject. Am I nervous? Absolutely. But I will have to adapt … probably.
I’m not anti-technology.
I invest in tech stocks and encourage my clients to do the same. I have two screens on my desk, two phones, and an iPad. I make money using technology. Screens can be amazing tools for learning, connecting, and creating, but kids shouldn’t live on them. Why do they need to start their mornings glued to a screen? Or hold a tablet while they’re already watching TV? And they definitely should NOT watch other kids play with toys instead of playing with toys themselves.
That’s why I focus on saying “yes” to everything else and encouraging it, reading, Barbies, forts, cooking, chasing the dog. These take effort on both their part and often mine, but they give my kids something screens never will. Plus, when screen time isn’t the default friend or toy, kids stop expecting it. They don’t wake up begging for shows or whining for tablets. They know the rules.
Do they push back? Absolutely.
“But ALL my friends have iPads! Some have phones!” Cue my canned classic response, “We’re not all your friends. These are our rules in our house.” Sometimes I throw in, “If you went to boarding school, you wouldn’t have it either.” That one only comes out when I’m at my wits’ end, then I sip my matcha like a queen who knows she’s right. SLAY, as my girls would say.
Do I break my own rules?
Yes, on vacation or a rare occasion when they are off school, and I am working from home and need to be on calls and Zooms. Long flights without screens are unrealistic and unfair to other passengers. On planes, they can watch or play games, and in hotel rooms at night, when they are stuck in another country with nothing to watch on TV, it’s a golden opportunity. Just like dessert after dinner, or staying up late, it’s part of the fun. But once we’re home, the regular boundaries return.
I promise I am not trying to make my kids’ lives harder (though my husband swears I make my own harder). I’m trying to make their lives fuller. I want them to remember playing, not watching. I want their childhood to feel like childhood, not a highlight reel of TikTok trends they’re too young to understand.
So maybe I’m crazy, maybe I am not. I’m just a mom trying to protect something sacred in a world that wants to swipe, scroll, and binge through everything. I’m not backing down, almost 10 years into it, I am pretty strong in my feelings. I believe my kids deserve more than endless screen time. They deserve their childhood. Just like I had mine. And I turned out okay … I think.
