On more new things I'm learning about reducing kids screen time for my kids, and how I do it

I've introduced another screen ban on the kids, after a relapse and massive realisation about what screens were doing to them, and how I CAN control that

I usually post on Tuesdays, but wanted to write something quickly here about screen time and kids. If you’re a parent, there’s quite a strong chance that the Christmas holidays will herald a LOT of screen time for your kids, and I wanted to share a realisation I’d had about managing this which is helping me, and helping my kids, and maybe it will help you.

I honestly think that the relationship with screens is an ongoing project; I don’t think there’s any single, simple solution to how to use screens in a positive way but not let them flatten the beauty of real life, so this is more of my ongoing attempt to create a healthy relationship with screens in my family’s life. And believe me, the battle to reduce the amount of time my kids spend on screens is ongoing. And the war against the way time spent on a screen negatively effects their mood and behaviour kids is very, very real.

A few months ago I dramatically reduced the amount of time my kids spent on screens, which I wrote about here. It started as an outright ban, which then morphed into much limited screen time for all three kids. That went pretty well for a bit, but then Pete was away a lot in the fall (notice how I oh-so-naturally call it ‘fall’), and I was doing weeks on my own with the kids. Weekends were tough, especially living in a foreign city, where access to friends and screen-free distractions just feels much harder to organise than in my old life in Oxfordshire. So the screens slipped back in over the past couple of months, and brought with them whining and fighting - at least when they were taken away. So I’ve hit them with another kind of ban; or at least, not an outright ban, but a much stricter relationship between them and screens, which came about after another realisation about how screens were changing their lives, and how I had the power to change this.