Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how there is so much free time. We have martial arts 2ce a week, music lesson 1ce a week. The other two days are aftercare and then catch up on weekend language school homework, any additional math HW. Music practice is daily if we can manage it or at least every other day for 35-40 minutes. Dinner is a nice 30-40 min sitting together and talking a that's the evening and lights out at 8:30. Barely time to do any fun reading or crafts. My kids just stopped asking for screens as there is no time. Weekends are language school, art club. Outside and playdates and seeing grandparents. Maybe an hour here or there on a Sunday to veg but that's it.

indian?

I don't understand how there is so much free time. We have martial arts 2ce a week, music lesson 1ce a week. The other two days are aftercare and then catch up on weekend language school homework, any additional math HW. Music practice is daily if we can manage it or at least every other day for 35-40 minutes. Dinner is a nice 30-40 min sitting together and talking a that's the evening and lights out at 8:30. Barely time to do any fun reading or crafts. My kids just stopped asking for screens as there is no time. Weekends are language school, art club. Outside and playdates and seeing grandparents. Maybe an hour here or there on a Sunday to veg but that's it.

Anonymous wrote:Not OP. Even when we have play dates, the kids want to be on screens. They will play with toys, etc. but it is not their 1st preference. 1st preference is always screens.

I don't know why that is. My kids would also be on screens all the time if they could.

Yes, this drives me nuts. Kids will come over, play for an hours, then come to me asking to watch some TV show or movie on streaming. The first couple times it didn't bother me because my kids don't get much screen time usually so watching a bit of TV with a friend doesn't sound bad to me as a one off. But over time I've started saying no more because it's obvious they get reliant on it. They'll play for a bit and then the first sign of boredom or disagreement over what to play, it's like "well let's watch TV." My kids have plenty of toys and we have a yard with a play house, swings, and a climbing structure. There's just no reason to resort to television.

I actually think some of the kids lost interest in coming to our house after I started saying no to TV more. They still want to hang out with my kids, but now they ask to host more, and a lot of these playdates are billed as "movie nights" because that's what they do. Again, I'm not particularly worried about my kids screen time, so this is fine with me. But I think it's such a bummer that so many of their friends just don't know how to play. these are still young kids -- 7 and 9.

It’s hard - but screen time should be limited as much as you can possibly get away with. There are so many negatives to a kids growing brain, whether it’s from the dopamine hit they get and not feeling good about real world activities, to be isolated, not learning how to manage down time and being bored. Plus, games like Roblox are open ended and essentially never end so it is developed to make it hard to “end” play forever. Overall, just not a great time filler. And I say this having to deal with what seems like constant battles to limit my own DD. We just had a big blow out over 3 hours spent online (mostly glued to Roblox) and not being able to calmly bring the gaming to an end. I just bought a whiteboard and told her she has 10 hours total to use during the week. With guidance to really stick to an hour a night on weekday. Hoping the visual cues that show the time getting smaller and smaller might help her balance her hours online better. There is no right or wrong amount of time online. But less is best no matter how you spin it.

One hour on school days, and only if they complete all homework. Weekends I'm more lenient to allow for movies and playdates (where they play video games part of the time). Homework or study apps on screens obviously don't count.