Can I just preface this by saying I give very very very few effs about screen time? My overwhelming belief (from the absolute privilege of being a quantity time mom) is that if I want my kid off their phone/tv/iPad/Xbox/Nintendo, then I need to present a more alluring option. And sometimes? I am fresh out of options.
All of this is to say that Minnie has been watching some whacked out Netflix show about a child influencer (it's for kids, I am pretty sure, and this "pretty" is definitely where you guys can judge me. A Good Mom would FOR SURE KNOW and might have a complicated formula around watching it-- if you do 30 minutes of X and 20 minutes of Y and also brush your teeth, then you can buy 15 minutes of consuming Z-- and Z would DEFINITELY BE VETTED and probably also available to be multiplied by a factor of time spent moving your body* (A)) and has now started talking to the camera in a very brand-conscious way.
AND. She wanted me to film her swimming and practicing what she is learning at swim lessons.
Some mornings look like this
**The phrase move your body or move my body drives me absolutely batty, you guys. Like is exercise a bad word? I MOVE MY BODY all day long but not in a way that contributes to my cardiac health or my muscle building. Why not name the specific things we do for our bodies? Running? Walking? Lifting weights? Practicing yoga? Pulling weeds? Stretching? Maybe it is all the work I have had to do over the last 10 years around naming learning outcomes, but you guys. VERBS MATTER. Specificity matters. Language determines our reality, and MOVE MY BODY is such a bland nothingburger of a phrase. Sometimes being a rhetorician makes very very very cranky. I think it is better, generally, to reclaim a term (if exercise feels inaccessible) than to use a new/less clear term. Gardening is exercise, for example. I guess I am an Eve Ensler feminist after all.
I don't judge. When my boys were in elementary school they watched YouTube videos of some guy named Blitzwinger whose entire schtick was unboxing toys for the camera. Somehow, they have grown up to be functioning adults.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicole. My kids have watched the dumbest things on Instagram- "unboxing" videos being a big one. I also can't say I always knew 100% what they were watching (for a while I would just ask Paul what Angie was watching and if he thought it was okay). They also- especially Angie- went through a phase where they started narrating their lives like that (sigh). They both grew up just FINE. Well, my son did at least, lol. My daughter is still a work in progress- but I can tell you that this summer, she deleted TikTok from her phone because she came to the conclusion- on her own- that it wasn't good for her. I'm not saying we shouldn't have ANY input on the quality and quantity of screen time, but this is the world we live in, and we have to work with it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, "move our body." I never really thought about it but where did that come from anyway?
Yep, screens are a thing so they're not worth fretting about. I'm sure that my Youtube history has plenty of questionable things on it.
ReplyDeleteLike Jenny, we found that the most reliable source for figuring out what a kid was up to was to ask the other kid;-)
Your kids are so involved in sports and creative pursuits!
ReplyDeleteMy kids both watch... a lot of screens. Like you, I try to offer lots of options but screens ARE relaxing and fun and so I mostly just let them watch things when they feel like it at this stage (I had more controls in place when they were younger). They also do not typically watch things that are "educational". My son watches Minecraft tutorials and would literally do it for an entire day, probably without breaking to eat. I don't sanction this, but also... when fun opportunities come up, he's happy to leave it to go play with a friend. My daughter is obsessed with watching true crime. (She also went through a huge phase of narrating her life in videos and I LOVE watching those videos now because they are precious!!!!)
"Other mornings, I am showing her that if she borrows a longer cord from a big bro and sits near an outlet, she can play on her iPad WHILE she charges." YES!!!!
Ooooohhhh I am fascinated by this rant! Will definitely be pondering this. I have, on many occasions, said, "move your body" to my kid... it does feel less onerous/of a commitment/scary (???) than "exercise," in some ways... maybe that's when/why I gravitate toward it? To try to get my kid to do something active without "scaring her off" by calling it exercise??? LOL. But now I'm wondering, why is exercise scary/onerous/boring/whatever... and why do I feel the need to gaslight my kid into backing into something she doesn't want to do??? Is this the physical exertion equivalent of rebranding broccoli as "fairy trees" to get your kids to try it???
ReplyDeleteI love me some screen time. I do tend to vilify it in some ways, though, but -- I swear! -- only because too much of it turns my particular kid into a sullen, grumpy slump of a person. If she and I could watch movies all day with no repercussions, I would be all for it! Well. You know, as long as there is some sort of BALANCE. Sometimes screen time is on the agenda and sometimes it isn't and both are fine.
The other day I told my 8 year old kid "ok enough youtube on the tv" and she switched to Netflix and it was the same exact show/people and I was like WTF is this? Have we entered a new era? I do care about screens (maybe too much but like the above comment there is a correlation between grouchiness: excess screens I think) and am surprised to see the melding of things but wonder why I am actually surprised?
ReplyDeleteI haven't thought about the dumbness of "move your body" because I use that phrase and will probably no longer use it after reading this.
Ehhhh, all exercise is movement, but not all movement is exercise. Two different words with two different meanings.
ReplyDeleteCan we talk about people who insist on describing exercise as "training"? Some people are training - they're getting ready for a competition or whatever. I, however, am not. Don't foist your "training" nonsense on me. I'm exercising so I can move when I'm in my 70s if I live that long.
ReplyDeleteI am a tightass when it comes to screens and that is the hill I’m willing to die on. Happily. My kids get almost no screens unless we are on the plane. If they want a screen they can use the good old fashioned TV and find a movie not feed the channels of garbage with their attention.
ReplyDeleteI don’t say “move your body” but I do say “go find something to do or I will find you something to do- dust or mop?” They find stuff to do real fast.
Oh this is Daria by the way
My daughter had limits on screen time until…I don’t know what age we stopped doing that, so I’m no help. She spends all day on screens now though. She works in front of a computer and in her down time she plays games on her gaming computer.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure it’s the parents’ job to provide options for their kid though. Well, I mean, if there are books to read in the house, and paper to draw on or color or whatever, maybe some coloring books…You’re providing that.
My daughter is 30 though, so I am not remembering a lot. She used to come to work with me sometimes in the summertime, and gosh she was bored. I had things for her to do (paper, pens, etc.) but that was it. It helped that there were often other kids there to play with.
I don’t really like the idea of ‘buying’ screen time though. I’m not sure why, but it rubs me the wrong way. Not saying I didn’t do it (probably told her she could do what she wanted to do after doing some math or whatever, because she needed to improve her math skills…)
I am not a parent, but in this day and age, I think it's about balance and you provide PLENTY of other options for your kids.
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