Parents often talk about how they need to regulate and limit their children’s access to their devices, to social media, or just screen time in general. Many articles have been written in this age when social media has blown up, about how to help our kids cope and manage it. The problem is that not enough has been written about helping parents detox, detach, and disconnect themselves from their phones, tablets, laptops, etc.
We need to take a step back and look at this problem anew and recognize that parents need help first. This is because if parents do not have control of themselves in this area, and if they are negatively being affected by their social media consumption, then they will not be able to help their children manage this same challenge in their lives.
Take an honest inward look
If you do not believe you need help, ask yourself the following helpful questions from familytoday.com. But look honestly, you will not help yourself if you pat yourself on the back when you need to do better, especially when your patterns of behavior could be affecting you and your children negatively. In the end, it is better to know the truth about yourself because then you can happily do something to make things better for you and your children.
So here are 5 questions you can ask yourself, according to familytoday.com
- How often do you use your phone to deal with feelings of stress, boredom or inadequacy? In other words, how often do you “phone-medicate”?
- Do you know how often you look at your phone? In other words, do you personally screen your screen time?
- Do you find being with your children less interesting and exciting than checking Facebook and seeing that red notification indicator? In other words, are you disconnecting from family for artificial connection?
- Are people always put before machines at family dinner? All your kids really want and need at dinner is your attention.
- Have you ever noticed your parenting skills decrease as your phone usage increases? Your parenting will be more inconsistent and slapdash the more you use your phone.
Once we’re able to see what we’re doing well and where we need some improvement, we can start making some changes. It can seem daunting to try to break old habits. But if you want to improve, then I suggest one simple but effective strategy.
Track your own screen time
There are several apps out there, like Social Fever, AppDetox, and Freedom, that can help you track, analyze, monitor, and limit not only the screen time of your kids, but your own. But you can also leverage Digital Wellbeing if you have Android, or iOS Screen Time if you use Apple products. These are just the settings you can access to help you manage yours and your family’s screen time without having to download an app.
Just regularly seeing when and how much screen time you have weekly will help you be more aware and conscious of your behavior, and you will almost automatically start to do better. This is because self-awareness is key.
As you improve and better manage your own screen time, you will be more confident and better equipped to manage your own children’s screentime, and as they grow older, you’ll be better able to help them manage their own behaviors around screen time.
