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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But school is work. And a long day. I think kids need that veg time after school. [/quote]

This is where we struggle. After school/activities, they are mentally tired and just want to decompress when they get home. Which is great and perfectly reasonable, but sometimes that means they run out of time in the evening (or it gets too close to bedtime and their brains turn off) and the "work" never happens. It's not even TV time for us, they're perfectly happy vegging on the couch and reading, coloring, listening to a podcast*, etc. Which, again, is great, but homework and chores need to get done as well.

*Anyone else struggle with podcasts? Mine aren't big TV watchers, but want to listen to podcasts non-stop. In the car, at breakfast, etc. It's not screen time, but it feels similar in that they're turning off their brains and passively listening instead of engaging with the world. Anyone have to put limits on podcasts?[/quote]

I have a podcast obsessed kid and have had this same question. I definitely think it's better than TV but yes, it also seems to have an addictive quality and when she was asking to listen to podcasts for literally hours on end, it gave us pause.

It got very bad last summer but has improved a lot during the school year because she's just busier and there is less time for podcasts. We have also had some luck trying to use them primarily during transition times -- in the car on the way to swim, at bedtime after required reading (one episode and then lights out). This creates natural stop times for it. If she then sometimes has a day where she listens to three hours of podcasts while doing arts and crafts or relaxing, it's okay. It's not daily or weekly anymore.

Regarding getting homework and chores done, we try to limit the weekday chores because school can be so tiring. The main chores are helping clean up after dinner, tidying rooms before beds, and helping make lunch in the morning. All of these are things that take 5-10 minutes and two of them are done with parents so as long as they actually help and don't just stand around, it counts.

We save more substantial chores for the weekend where we can have them do 30 minutes of something like laundry or cleaning/organizing with the promos of a bigger reward after (usually an outing of some kind). It's so much easier to motivate a kid to do more substantial chores on a Saturday morning when they are well rested than at 6pm on a Tuesday when they are wiped out from school and also will feel panicky about losing too much of their downtime before bed.[/quote]

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