This is a tough thing to do for all of us at any age. When my children were younger, we didn’t allow them to have a cell phone until middle school sports started. As you can imagine, our children were the “only ones” without a phone (and that was repeated to us daily). Our rationale for the phone was to be able to communicate and coordinate with one another. Unfortunately, it can be used for so many other things (texting, gaming, social media,etc). That is why I suggested a flip phone. It’s perfect and has limited capabilities. That idea was met with great resistance. We didn’t get the flip phone and opted for an iPhone with clear boundaries on how, what and when. We tried every trick we knew to limit and manage the use of devices. It was a constant battle and still is during the college years.
How do you help your child (and yourself) limit the use of devices?
Here are a few quick tried and true tips:
- Be clear, consistent and firm about when devices can and cannot be used.
- Create device free areas. Don’t allow devices in your 🛌child’s bedroom, during dinner, riding in the car or family time.
- Model how to use devices responsibly. Talk about balance and moderation.
- Encourage children of all ages to spend time outside playing, riding bikes or doing a hobby.
- Read a book. Start 15 minutes of reading everyday for everyone in your house. Take books everywhere as an alternative.
- Set up a Family Charging Station.
- Require every device to be connected to the Family Charging Station by a certain time every night.
- Make sure there are lots of opportunities for real connections, conversations and relationship-building.
- Play music, talk, sing or roll the windows down and enjoy a car ride WITHOUT devices.
- Move the devices away from you. Make it harder to reach for them day or night. We noticed that when we moved our devices from the nightstand to the dresser or into another room, it really made a difference. We didn’t want to get up to retrieve them.
Technology has an important role in all of our lives. The key just like everything else is finding balance and using it in moderation. Our children desperately need to have technology breaks and so do adults!