Saying Goodbye to Screen Time

(Creme, Friday morning.)

Last Friday evening, Jude and I planned to take the boys to Seven Hills to swim after work.  She was running late and I was running late.  When she got home, she learned Joe hadn't had a particularly good afternoon with Katie, our summer nanny.  Then, J.P. had a bad attitude - one that went from bad to worse - when she told him they would be late getting to the pool.  In the end, J.P ended up in his room and Jude and I canceled the trip to the pool.

I had a long talk with J.P. when I got home, then we had a family meeting at dinner.  I was disappointed in the boys' behavior, especially J.P.'s.  I expect more of him because he's the oldest and he sets the example for Joe.  As I told him, when he loses his temper and raises his voice or yells at Jude, Joe sees it and thinks it's okay to act like that.  I can't have Joe thinking that at 7 years of age.

At dinner, Jude and I talked with the boys about gratitude and entitlement, common themes around our  house.  I talked about being selfless, and  not selfish.  Selfish = me.  Selfless = we.  That's what I told them, anyway.

We're blessed to have two good sons.  They're rarely much trouble.  But they're normal, young boys trying to figure out life and they need guidance.  They're going to occasionally get off track and it's our job to get them back on track.

To emphasize the importance of behaving, with us and especially with babysitters or nannies (including Grandma and Jimdad), Jude and I decided to take away all of the boys' screens for a while.  No television.  No iPads.  No looking at videos on or cell phones.  No Xbox.  No screens at all.

Now, we're not big on screen time as it is.  I suspect we're in the bottom 10% of all of our peer group families when it comes to allowing the boys to have screen time, for better or worse.  They only get to use their iPads on Saturday and Sunday mornings, for an hour at most.  Xbox is a rarity, maybe once a week on weekends.  No Fortnite.  They do watch a fair amount of television, though it's mostly sports at dinner or on weekends.

Although I worry sometimes that we're sheltering the boys, it's a joy to see them reading, on their own, as opposed to watching television or videos.  That's our focus.  Still, the boys love their screen time, perhaps because they don't get a lot of it.  Thus, taking away all of their screen time was a pretty draconian disciplinary measure by their way of thinking.

(Honest Coffee Roasters, Tuesday at noon)

What's been a pleasant surprise, I think, is how well it's gone - for us, anyway - for the boys to be without screens.

We've eaten dinner at the dining room table every night, which is something we had gotten away from.  So many night - maybe most nights - we have "sports picnics" and watch television while we're eating dinner.  Yes, we're together but it's in front of the television and the reality is that our conversation likely is a reaction to whatever we're watching.  When we're eating at the dining room table, our conversation involves how our day went, what went well, what didn't go well.  We interact more with each other, it seems.

Also, and I may be wrong about his, but the boys seem happier and less fussy with no screen time.  Now, maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part but it sure seems that way.

Since I started this post, we eased up a bit and let the boys watch Apollo 13 with us on Saturday night.  Still, no iPads for them, though, and no sports on television.  We'll see where it goes the next few days, as Jude is in Washington, D.C. and I have the boys on my own for "Guytown."