Limiting Screen Time

I think Phil and I are strict parents when it comes to a couple things.

One is sleep. Our friends and family are amazed and shocked to see us putting our kids to bed at 6:30, and even more surprised that they willingly go to bed at that time. No fights, no stalling, we have worn them out and they are ready to sleep. Sure, sometimes they ask for a glass of milk or talk for a couple minutes in bed, but it's hard being perfect ;)

The other hard and fast rule we have around here is limiting screen time. Screen time is the combination of all things involving a screen - tv, movies, computers, video games. And we limit their screen time to an hour a day. Every once in a great while we'll put an old Disney movie on for them to watch (and if I'm in the throes of morning sickness, they get a little extra tv time), but on most days, they only get a half hour to an hour of screen time. There are plenty of summer days that they get no screen time at all because we're having too much fun outside.

I'm not sure why we limit them so much in this area. Maybe it's because Phil and I watch more tv than we'd care to admit, and don't want them falling into the same habits. Perhaps it's because I want to make sure they are being engaged and my kids tend to zone out while watching tv. Or it could be that I see parents who leave their tv's on all day and end up having kids who don't know how to interact socially, or who have nightmares from what they see on the news and other adult shows. Many studies have been done to show the harmful affects of too much screen time, as this article points out.

I would like to raise kids that can be creative and imaginative. Kids that want to figure things out for themselves, and learn by trial and error, instead of watching other people do it. I also want them to be active kids. Childhood obesity is such a problem, and although I struggle to get them to eat veggies, I know they'll gladly run around all day if I let them, so why not let them?

I know that the older they get, the more time they'll need on the computer to complete their school work, and of course we don't have a problem with that. I also realize that the only shows we let them watch are "educational" in nature and do teach them plenty. (I swear that Sesame Street taught my kids how to count and read very early!) But there are also shows that do not.

(I could never undertand the appeal of the Teletubbies)

But for now, they are all so little, and I want to make sure that they are not seeing too much of a world they don't quite understand. We'll take it one small step at a time, and hope it's in the right direction.