How can we get our kids to put down their phones when they see us on ours so often?
A 2016 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit children’s advocacy
and media ratings organization, asked almost 1,800 parents of children
aged 8 to 18 about screen time and electronic media use by the parents.
The average amount of time that parents spent with screen media of all
kinds (computers, TVs, smartphones, e-readers) every day: 9 hours and 22
minutes. And on average, only an hour and 39 minutes of that was
work-related; 7 hours and 43 minutes were personal.
Maybe
that’s one reason you hear more and more often the recommendation that
families delineate specific screen-free times and places in their lives.
James P. Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, cited the
idea of “sacred spaces” advocated by Sherry Turkle,
a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of
the 2015 book “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital
Age.”
It’s
just as important to regulate our own use of devices and put them aside
for screen-free periods as it is to ask our children to disconnect. And
it certainly adds spice to family life if children understand that the
same rules apply for all ages: that Dad will get grief for
surreptitiously checking his phone under the dinner table and Mom has to
park hers in the designated recharging zone for the night just as the
children do.
Here
are my own top five sacred spaces, but I’ll tell you frankly that
they’re very much “aspirational” for me; I have a long way to go before
I’m a good example.
1. In the Bed
Keeping
TVs out of children’s bedrooms and bedtimes is an old pediatric
recommendation from back in the day when TV was the screen we worried
about most. Now we also stress keeping smartphones out of their beds,
but many of us as adults also struggle with this imperative, which
pretty much everyone agrees is critical for improved sleep and therefore
improved health. Those of us with children out of the home, of course,
tell ourselves that the phone has to come into the bedroom in case a
child needs to call — but the phone can sleep on the other side of the
room, not on the night stand.
2. At the Table
If
the family gathers around the dinner table, basic table manners dictate
no digital participants. And yes, that means parents get in trouble if
they lapse, and you don’t get to use the old
let-me-just-Google-this-important-and-educational-fact strategy to
settle family debates and questions of history, literature, or old movie
trivia, because everyone knows what else you’ll do once you take out
the phone.
3. Reading a Book
I
don’t read books well if I’m toggling back and forth to email. That’s
O.K. for other kinds of reading, maybe, but not for books. If you made a
New Year’s resolution to read more books or you’re going to try for
family reading time, you can allow e-readers, but you might keep other
screens at a distance.
4. In the Outdoors
It’s
definitely worth picking some outdoor experiences that are going to be
screen-free. One of the dangers of carrying our screens with us wherever
we go is that wherever we go, the landscape is the same — it’s a
conscious decision to go outside and see what there is to see, even if
that means losing the chance to take a photo now and then. It may also
work to put phones on airplane mode for travel and family activities, so
they can be used only as cameras – or for maps or emergency calls if
needed.
5. In the Car
This
is a tougher one for many families, since screens in the car can be so
helpful on long rides, especially with siblings in proximity. But time
in the car can also be remarkably intimate family time (yes, I know, not
always in a good way). Some of the most unguarded conversations of the
middle school and adolescent years take place when a parent is
chauffeuring, so it’s probably worth trying for some designated
screenless miles. I assume that I don’t have to say that the driver
should not be looking at a screen — but the parent riding shotgun in the
front also has to play by the rules.
Mr.
Steyer said his organization’s survey showed that parents are paying
attention to the ways that their children use screen media, and that
they see it as their responsibility to monitor and regulate their
children’s use of technology. In fact, two-thirds of the parents felt
that such monitoring was more important than respecting their children’s
privacy.
Parents’
role has to include awareness and also a willingness to “use media and
technology together whenever you can,” Mr. Steyer said; “it’s good for
parents to watch and play and listen with their kids and experience
media and technology with them and ask them questions about what they
see and hear.”
In a new policy on screen media use
by school-age children and adolescents released last October, the
American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that families develop and
regularly update a family media use plan,
using an online tool that takes into account the individual family’s
patterns and goals and lets you designate screen-free times and places.
That can be helpful for screen-loving children and for their
screen-loving parents as well.
