On how I reduced screen time for my children, and the dramatic effect it's had on family life
Taking screens away from my kids wasn't easy, but I'd reached a crisis.
I wanted to write this week about children and screens, since it seems to be one of the most pressing and problematic parts of parenting. And for the last nine months or so - since last autumn - I have been making a massive effort to change the way my younger children, Evangeline,11, Dash, 10 and Lester, 7, use screens. This has had a huge effect on them, so I want to explain why I had dramatically reduce the amount of time they spent on screens, and what I replaced it with. The two things together has completely altered things in the way I parent them - for the better - although getting to this point was a struggle and at times, felt like a complete crisis.
I’ve written a little bit about this on Instagram, but I want to explain in more detail about how I had to redefine my kid’s relationship to screens. I’ve also shared on Instagram a bit about the specific challenges of parenting one of my kids, who has a huge (neurodiverse) character, and I’m going to go into this in greater depth. I’m sharing this because I really hope it might help another parent at their absolute wits end, almost living in fear of the next crisis, as I was at times. This is quite sensitive and personal information, so I’m putting the pay wall in here, for obvious reasons.