I have a non sports playing 5th grader as well. He can play games 6:30-7:30pm if he’s done homework/chore/practice before then. He usually plays with his brothers or reads in his free time before then. 7:30-8:30 his younger brothers are in bed already, so we play board type games together or he reads in bed. Weekends he can have an hour mid-day and another in the evening. When his friends are over, I don’t police them much, but will kick them to the backyard if it seems like they’ve been on for an extensive time.
Other activities... he just started liking Dungeons & Dragons (thanks to Stranger Things), writing his own books, creating games & activities for his brothers, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I could have written your post as well as your replies.

Like you I've sort of softened on the games because DS wouldn't have much contact with friends otherwise and he is at the age where he feels like Legos and "playing" with things is babyish.

What I've found sort of works is to have non-screen activities lying around for the kids to find. Things like the velcro ball catch or new markers, nothing expensive or amazing, just enough to peak their interest or an old toy that reappears.

I find that if I declare "It Is Not Screen Time Until 6:00" they just count the minutes til 6. But if there's stuff around for them to discover on their own somehow that's
different.

OP here. This is awesome, thanks. A concrete easy idea.

To the poster who asked about a spouse - yes but he is out of the house for longer hours than me, so I'm the one dealing with the post-school hours. On weekends it's easier. I will say that he does not get as concerned as I do about screen time. He is in the "we played lots of video games as kids" camp, although he also grew up in an area with more outdoor options (woods, streams, etc.)

To the other poster who talked about gangs of kids roaming the neighborhood and vaping - I don't think that happens at age 11. But how depressing if our two options are outside vaping aimlessly vs. endless Fornite...

Anyway, thanks for this discussion, I find it fascinating. If there are any more ideas about at-home activities that are compelling for boys this age that are NOT screens I would love to hear them.

NP here. My son is a little younger than yours (he's about to be 10), so things may be very different for him in a few years, but right now, I find what he and his friends do to be interesting. He does play Fortnite, but really only likes it for the social aspect. He and his friends call each other on Google Hangouts and form squads. Usually during play dates, they'll play maybe 20 mins and then do something else- basketball, mostly- then they'll play a little more until they die in the game, and then they run off to do something else. If they're at a particularly friend's house, they built a fort outside. I assumed given unfettered access to Fortnite, they'd be on it all the time, but they aren't, for some reason.

Mine does tutoring (3 hours/week), reads at least one hour every day, and plays baseball, which is a huge time commitment (two weekly practices min 2 hours each for little league and one for travel), practice and game twice weekly (3 hours each, travel and little league), and boy scouts (2 hours weekly). He earns video game time by doing yard work with me or walking the dog. Homework is 30 minutes/day, longer if he has hands on projects.

How about encouraging him to explore something like D&D or Magic the Gathering? Similar gaming and social aspects, but less zombifying than video games. I feel like these kind of world-building games also appeal to kids who tend to get obsessed with things, because there's so much to collect and build and explore. You never exhaust the possibilities.

Plenty of local game shops have beginner's games on the weekends to help get started, if he doesn't have any friends who currently play. They could advise you on a starter set, and he'd meet other kids who play.

Anonymous wrote:OP I could have written your post as well as your replies.

Like you I've sort of softened on the games because DS wouldn't have much contact with friends otherwise and he is at the age where he feels like Legos and "playing" with things is babyish.

What I've found sort of works is to have non-screen activities lying around for the kids to find. Things like the velcro ball catch or new markers, nothing expensive or amazing, just enough to peak their interest or an old toy that reappears.

I find that if I declare "It Is Not Screen Time Until 6:00" they just count the minutes til 6. But if there's stuff around for them to discover on their own somehow that's
different.

OP here. This is awesome, thanks. A concrete easy idea.

To the poster who asked about a spouse - yes but he is out of the house for longer hours than me, so I'm the one dealing with the post-school hours. On weekends it's easier. I will say that he does not get as concerned as I do about screen time. He is in the "we played lots of video games as kids" camp, although he also grew up in an area with more outdoor options (woods, streams, etc.)

To the other poster who talked about gangs of kids roaming the neighborhood and vaping - I don't think that happens at age 11. But how depressing if our two options are outside vaping aimlessly vs. endless Fornite...

Anyway, thanks for this discussion, I find it fascinating. If there are any more ideas about at-home activities that are compelling for boys this age that are NOT screens I would love to hear them.

What I am wondering is, how are other parents - especially the ones who want their kids to have less screen time - dealing with the constant pressure to get back on the screens? (They have to be experiencing it too, since whenever my son logs on to Fortnite, it seems like a majority of his school friends are online!) And for those that have successfully lessened screen time, WHAT activities do your son(s) like to do? Should I enroll him in a sport or some type of activity every afternoon? Should I restrict screen time to the weekends? (I have tried this in the past, and then just got worn down, I guess.)

My son only knows how to access Fortnite from his switch. He gets it for an hour each weekend day, and we lock it up on the weekdays. He does play travel soccer, but that only eats up so much time.

Anonymous wrote:When we bought a big screen computer for the family room, we made some rules about screen time: 75% of all screen time must be "productive" rather than "consumptive"

So DS developed some new hobbies around the computer,including programming (starting with 'scratch' and moving into java) and also creating electronic music, starting with garage band on the mac and eventually with a more advanced program, which he asked for for xmas. Both hobbies have stuck very well- he has a lot to actually show for his screen time now.

I like this response. Travel sports is not always a viable solution. And sometimes it's nice to be home - and yes I could go to museums, Pump it up whatever but that's not solving the issue as much as avoiding IMHO

Anonymous wrote:DP

I don't have any illusions about the good old days either. I spent most of my childhood watching TV and I don't think that was better. And I don't think playing video games for multiple hours a day is a great idea either, so now what? Am I allowed to say most kids should spend more unstructured time off of screens or is that mom shaming?

I think most kids do have unstructured time. I think some parents hear kids talking about video games and assume that is all they do. Or they get upset when kids get together and they want to play these games together -- when the reality is they rarely get to do this. My kids are really busy, and don't get a lot of screen time, but one mom overheard my kid talking to hers about some game or another and the mom asked my kid if he was "a gamer." He said yes, lol. I thought that was amusing given how little he actually plays. But then, she turned to her kid and sternly said, "You are not a gamer. You are not like that. You just play a game every now and then."

It was so strange and inappropriate and over the top. I just though, holy crap, just let them be kids! We don't need to suck all the joy out of their lives.

OP I could have written your post as well as your replies.

Like you I've sort of softened on the games because DS wouldn't have much contact with friends otherwise and he is at the age where he feels like Legos and "playing" with things is babyish.

What I've found sort of works is to have non-screen activities lying around for the kids to find. Things like the velcro ball catch or new markers, nothing expensive or amazing, just enough to peak their interest or an old toy that reappears.

I find that if I declare "It Is Not Screen Time Until 6:00" they just count the minutes til 6. But if there's stuff around for them to discover on their own somehow that's
different.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. These replies are so helpful.

I wish there were a critical mass of boys my son's age who were just outside all the time. But often he and his friends are the only group walking around outside in our neighborhood (when I make them go outside). My son's friends all show up at our house with their devices - so even if I send them outside, once they get tired of it they go straight to the devices.

I too am torn about overscheduling (I have 2 other kids and don't want them to be in the car all the the time so we can drive my son to his activities) and wanting unstructured time (but then that ends up with the kids defaulting to screens).

I don't know that there's a solution to this. I'm also busy and have the 2 other kids so I can't always be monitoring the screen time to ensure that they are programming, for example, instead of just playing Fortnite. I did take Youtube off our TV and generally forbid it in our house... and that actually has improved things marginally (in that they are not constantly watching YouTubers and mimicking their speech and actions).

Do you have a spouse who can also help out with these things?

DP

I don't have any illusions about the good old days either. I spent most of my childhood watching TV and I don't think that was better. And I don't think playing video games for multiple hours a day is a great idea either, so now what? Am I allowed to say most kids should spend more unstructured time off of screens or is that mom shaming?

We ration screen time for our 12yo. 30 min on week nights and 2.5 hours on the weekend. T

We don't allow fortnite during the week. Weekends I am pretty flexible, but of course lots of time is dedicated to sports, birthday parties, and family stuff. During the week I will allow some TV after dinner (TV! not youtube) and a little bit of non-fortnite gaming after school (Legend of zelda or mario kart). We like to watch a tv show as a family when we can. Son is 11 and also has sports after school so there's not a lot of extra time during the week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is really disconcerting. "Don't worry, they'll be overscheduled soon enough." So kids are either entertained by very high-stimulation, designed-to-be-addictive games (which also have some positive qualities!) or they have adults filling up their time with structured activities? When do they learn how to manage lives at a normal pace?

Define normal. And if your definition is "the way it was when I was a kid" -- life isn't the way it was. Kids have balance, its just they balance activities that are different from what we were balancing. For example, we watched TV after school and after dinner. My kids have never watched a TV show. Not once. They have no interest.

Also, I grew up in a rural area and my kids are growing up in a city. Our childhoods are very different. Both are normal.

Nope. That's not at all how I define normal, and I'm not a Luddite. I define normal (true, perhaps not the ideal word choice) as something closer to "self-generated" or "variable" or just generally a pace not "dictated by another force."

"Balance" or "moderation" is nearly 100% subjective and tends to be based on the norms of your peer group-- which are not necessarily or even usually healthy guidelines.

A lot of adults go to work, have their pace largely dictated by their bosses, and come home and spend 50% or more of their free time binge-watching Netflix. I guess if that's "the new normal," I'm just questioning it. I think a lot of parents whose kids get a lot of screen time also have these questions in the backs of their minds, and I think that's healthy. I'm not being a reactionary, I'm not trying to guilt anyone, I'm just expressing what I think is a reasonable amount of discomfort at many of these answers.

I'm just questioning that as a status quo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is really disconcerting. "Don't worry, they'll be overscheduled soon enough." So kids are either entertained by very high-stimulation, designed-to-be-addictive games (which also have some positive qualities!) or they have adults filling up their time with structured activities? When do they learn how to manage lives at a normal pace?

You do it your way, and we do it our way. How about that? Video game is a phase for our kids. Once they realize that it doesn't have to be a way of life, they don't resort to it. That's our theory and it frankly has worked for our kids. So to teach their own.

Hit dogs holler, I guess.