My in-laws have their DC's on tic tok 5 hours per day, and my SIL says that being a mother is the most beautiful experience in life.

Of course, being a parent is always beautiful (when you are too lazy to do anything for your DC's).

I would get them busy. Sports, chores, a job, walking the dog, whatever.

Are they doing Spelling Bee because when I play that, I really get sucked in and mad.

16 hours/day here and I'm fine

I have a 16 yo who averages about 2 hours a day.
No cell phone use at school (school policy, but I agree).
No cell phone in bedroom at night, and he goes to bed at a reasonable time.

That alone would make 12+ hours a day impossible, but add in sports/music/clubs/hanging out with friends in real life/etc., and there isn’t much time left for screens.

Is this weekends only presumably? Even so I would never allow my kids to be on screens 12-13 hours a day. That’s 8 am to 8 pm!

Do they leave the house those days to do activities or socialize? Do they get fresh air?

How every day? What about school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you know what kind of screen time it is mostly? Watching TV, playing video games, social media, doing homework using their phone, reading a book on a kindle app, listening to Spotify while doing homework?

12-13 hours is a lot no matter what but some kinds of screen time is worse than others.

Everyday. X, Tiktok, Youtube, IG, Netflix, Discord & Games.

Cannot be every day as they go to school, no? Screen time is the equivalent on running the TV all day every day in the past. Sometimes there's just a game in the background on a screen, so what? People who are afraid of "screen time" and what their kids do there are computer illiterates.

I assume it isn’t on a school day, because that would mean the were skipping school and/or losing sleep.

Otherwise, unlike most of DCUM, I don’t have an automatic problem with screens. I consider them just another form of media, which should be judged primarily on the content accessed in that format. Generally speaking, we considered as a privilege to be used during leisure time as long as obligations (homework, chores, activities, etc.) are fulfilled. Like any privilege, it could be restricted when we felt it was necessary for discipline or balance, but we generally didn’t limit on the basis of time.

A child occasionally spending 12-13 hours with screens, I think is fine - like it’s fine for an adult to binge a series or working on a project. Sometimes they were working on a project or a game or we might binge a series as a family. Having it on in the background listening to podcasts, music, etc., while they did other things, I can see being a more common use. However, if they were spending every day off solely devoted to screens to the exclusion of anything else, I think they probably should be encouraged to branch out to other activities and may need to have screens limited until they readjust and can balance them for themselves.

Anonymous wrote:Do you know what kind of screen time it is mostly? Watching TV, playing video games, social media, doing homework using their phone, reading a book on a kindle app, listening to Spotify while doing homework?

12-13 hours is a lot no matter what but some kinds of screen time is worse than others.

Everyday. X, Tiktok, Youtube, IG, Netflix, Discord & Games.

Anonymous wrote:If your older teen had 12-13 hours of screentime usage per day, what would you do?

💩 💩

If child has a smartphone I would desperately try to course correct.

Do you know what kind of screen time it is mostly? Watching TV, playing video games, social media, doing homework using their phone, reading a book on a kindle app, listening to Spotify while doing homework?

12-13 hours is a lot no matter what but some kinds of screen time is worse than others.

On a weekday? Every day? Weekends?

I'd wonder why my kid got to this age and no other obligations or way to spend his/her time.

I have a 16 year old by the way. He'll sometimes have a weekend day where he can log 8 or 9 hours but it's pretty atypical and he's busy otherwise so I don't really begrudge him those days when he has them. The teen equivalent of having a free day and binge watching a show.

If your older teen had 12-13 hours of screentime usage per day, what would you do?