"Screen time" -- TV and vidoe games -- what limits are reasonable?

[Reya]

We don't get TV, but we do have a TV, a number of videos, and several game systems. When DS was at our house 95% of his waking hours, his TV exposure was fairly limits. DH might play an hour of games while he was awake, and he would watch a movie (usually short, like VeggieTales) every other day or so.

 

And then come the neighbors.

 

They have a son right at DS's age--just a bit younger--and the two are now inseparable. The neighbors, however, started using the TV as a babysitter when their son was an *infant.* When we arrived, the kid was logging at LEAST 5 hours of TV a day on weekdays when he wasn't in preschool. On weekends, it was at around 12 hours per day. And the child would just sit there like a zombie with his mouth hanging open.

 

Well, fast forward half a year, and our DS's dissatisfaction with the mindless hours of TV has encouraged the neighbor's son to cut down to 3-4 hours during the week and 6-8 on the weekend. But that's still, well, obscene. If they want to live that way, that's their choice, but now MY son's seeing 80% of the TV that their son is! And I'm really, really disgusted with it. I'm ready to put my foot down. I've already changed curfew to get rid of an hour of it, but now I'm thinking of instituting a max-screen-time-per-day rule for DS.

 

Right now, I'm thinking no more than 2 hours per day. Even that makes me really dissatisfied, as I think that 1 hour per day is PLENTY. It'll be tough for my kiddo because he'll have to come home if the neighbor's kid is vegging out, but I can't stand such an udder squander of, well, EVERYTHING on something so stupid and damaging. 2 hours isn't at all unreasonable, I think. And DS will just have to find other kids to play with.

 

I do have *some* control over the TV watching of the neighbor's kid. I watch him exclusively one night a week (and except for 30 min before bed, the TV is OFF, and he never even misses it!), and we're also in and out of each other's houses a lot and do a lot of "boy herding" in general, so I more or less get backed up when I kick them outside to play for a few hours. But all it takes is a few tears, and their son gets just about anything he wants. So, for example, today it is a fabulous 70 degrees with clear skies and a light breeze, and I come back from grocery shopping and discover that the WHOLE time I've been gone the kids have been watching a movie at the neighbor son's instigation. A movie. In the middle of the freaking day. When it's beautiful outside. I kick them outside for two hours--and immediately, the neighbor's kid leads mine into our house (at this time, I was in the neighbor's house keeping an ear out for the baby while the mother shopped). There, the neighbor's kid talked DH into playing video games while they watched. Uh, NO. If my kid had done that? Spanking for disobedience. Right there. (As it is, he's going to be in SUPER trouble this evening.) So I let DH know that they've been kicked out for two hours, and they go trit-trotting outside again...only for the neighbor's kid to try to sneak back into his own house and then, when I catch him, for him to pitch a fit to his father because he couldn't veg in front of the TV.

 

Result? He gets a treat for pitching a fit.

 

ARGH.

 

Fortunately, guilt does work well on the parents, so at least he didn't cave and let the kid watch TV. Instead, he took him to a go-cart track so he wouldn't be "so sad."

 

Okay. I'm happy that the kids are having fun and AREN'T in front of the TV. But you-pitch-fit, you-get-reward is getting so frustrating for me. It makes it harder when I have to watch them--and harder for me in raising my own kid.

*sighs* So this is somewhat about the TV thing and this is somewhat about childrearing in general. It's extra important that this is worked out because I'm homeschooling their kiddo more than 50% with mine, and the whole behavior problems/attention problems/sleep problems caused by bad TV habits bite ME more than them even with their own kid.

 

Right now, I'm hoping I can guilt them into instituting some stricter rules. That will make their DS more pleasant, as well as getting my DS out into the day far more often. :-/

 

At this point, I'm ready to throw all the TVs from the roof of the house--theirs and mine both.

[Night Elf]

What are you asking, exactly? I hope this doesn't come across as snarky but I'm absolutely floored at your attitude with the neighbors, especially the idea that you feel you have the right to guilt them into changing their parenting or that they even would allow you to guilt them into changing their parenting. I have to LOL, honestly. If I was in your position, I would not allow tv in my home where I have control, and then not allow my son over at the neighbor's house where I do not have control. Of course I should add that we have no limits on screen time, and we are all okay. I would be honest about our no limits to anyone who asked but I would not change my parenting because someone else thinks they do it better. They can parent their kids and I'll parent mine. :)

[Angela in TN]

I agree with Beth. All you can do really is control what your ds does at home and you can control those he has contact with but I'd watch out in trying to have a say over what other parents deem acceptable in their house. If you have a problem with the way they let them watch t.v. or play video games over there then just limit the play time to your house where you can oversee what's going on.

[Peela]

I have a bit of a similar issue with my son...he gets no screen time here during the week unless we are watching a series together on DVD (currently Darling Buds of May!), but then he goes to play with his friends and sometimes I don't see him for hours. We had a big issue come up here because I had banned a certain online game, due to the addictive behaviour it was triggering in our son, and he accepted that, but his friends ended up getting onto it, and he ended up getting an account over at his friends' houses, and then the boys were all bribing each other with using my son's account when he wasn't there and we had big emotional upheavals. It turned into such a big trip that the parents noticed something wierd was going on, realised Jared had been banned from this game for a valid reason after all, and banned it too. So, that solved that. Meanwhile it was several months of way too much screen time, uncontrolled, and addictive games, at other people's houses.

See, I don't like to put my child is a position where it is easy for him to lie. I don't visit his friends' houses very often, so I had no way of monitoring how much time he was spending there on TV or computer games, so I didn't want to put a rule that he coulnd't do that because I had no way of knowing if he was or not, making it too easy for him to lie to me. I didnt want to ban him from his friends, because as a homeschooled kid, I didnt want to ban him from his friends! Theyre not bad kids and I have a polite relationship with the parents, where we sometimes share any problems that come up.

 

I just talked to him about it, and said I would like to see him out on the street playing more often, rather than inside their houses. He said he preferred that anyway, and it did help because the boys are all younger than him and adore him.

But in the end, I only can control what goes on in my house, and our limits are sometimes family viewing during the week....but the kids have an hour on Fridays and 2 hours on Saturdays and Sundays for their computer games. If they get extra at other people's houses, so be it- its irregular, anyway. My dd has gone to have a sleepover at friends' houses and come home saying they watched 4 movies. That's just not something I would do or allow, but it didn't kill her and I wouldn't stop her going there over that, because it's not often.

 

I dont think there is any easy solution when kids are friends. There is a family (a family we are close to for other reasons) that my son has a good friend in, but we don't let him visit that family's house because the older son, who I have homeschooled in the past, is delinquent and a bad liar and a bad influence and we have a deal that Jared is not to spend ANY time with this older child, but he can play with the younger child. The mother accepts it, knowing her older son is a bad influence, and so we only have that younger child over to our place.

 

You do what you have to do, work out what battles are worth fighting, and what ones are worth letting go of. Friends can be an important issue for homeschoolers, and I am wiling to compromise my own standards on screen time to some extent to facilitate my children's friendships.