What happened to us? I’m not sure if that’s a rhetorical question or not…Like seriously, what happened? Any time my kids has one of their friends over I always ask “What’s your plans for the weekend/what did you do last weekend, are you taking any vacations, what do you like to do for fun, etc”. And what get back is “nothing” or video games, YouTube, TikTok. WHAT. HAPPENED.
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Now don’t get me wrong, my kids have electronics. In fact, they have phones, tablets and Chromebooks. And yep, sometimes they’re on all 3 at the same time. But here’s the thing…we have limits. We go outside. We play board games, Legos, we make up stories and read books. We DO THINGS. And also yep, my kids get bored – especially my son. The second he wakes up and we don’t have anything going on right away he says “I’m bored”. Cool story bro, go find something to do or…just be bored.
People, hear me – IT.IS.OKAY.FOR.YOUR.KIDS.TO.BE.BORED.
And hear this – IT.IS.OKAY.FOR.YOUR.KIDS.NOT.TO.BE.ON.A.SCREEN.
And this – IT.IS.OKAY.FOR.YOU.TO.GET.OFF.YOUR.SCREEN.TOO.
Get off your fucking screen, all of you. Even if you don’t have anything planned. Stare at each other I don’t give a shit. Just get off your screen.
Now, do I entertain my kids all the time? No. Do I play “pretend” with them? Nope. Do I take them everywhere and buy them anything they want? Hell no.
You ever see those pictures of the child’s perspective when the parents are on their phones? If you haven’t, look it up. If you have, look at it again. For craps sake – get off your phone. They see you, they think this is okay. It’s not.
Since this post is about phones (electronics in general), I want to talk about videos – 60 second or less videos in particular. Please hear me – THEY MESS WITH YOUR KIDS HEAD! I don’t mean the content they’re watching (that’s a whole other subject), I mean how fast they go.
Do an experiment. Have an experience with your child prior to them going on their phone for at least 10 minutes. Talk to them, play a quick board or card game, color a picture….really look at and interact with them during that time. Now try to talk to them or do those things after they’ve watched those short videos after 30 minutes. It’s unbelievable! It’s like they’re in a trance; they’re pissed off and agitated. Why? Because when you (and I mean adults too) watch video after video and do swipe after swipe then try to engage with someone or something after…your brain can’t even function. It’s like everything is in slo-mo. Nothing will process. You’re a fucking zombie. Try it on yourself! Try to go outside and complete a task after spending an hour on TikTok in a mindless trance. You’ll wander around until you end up in your neighbors empty pool. Now imagine that for a child’s mind. Do you know what you’re (all of us) are doing? STOP. At the very least, LIMIT.
My son is OBSESSED with YouTube and YouTube Shorts. He is a completely different kid if he’s watched more than 20-30 minutes of Shorts in a row and I hate it. I tell him that too. I tell him I don’t like the person he is when he’s on his phone for too long. He’s unmotivated, irritated and defiant. It’s not the content he’s watching, it’s how he’s watching it. I know probably 70%+ of what he watches and it’s not inappropriate, it’s the way it’s presented – lightning speed. It messes with them, with all of us.
My daughter went down a little bit different path and I didn’t find out about it until much later. One night she just word-vomitted. She told me how she was having trouble sleeping and then that turned into some of things that came up on her YouTube Shorts. One sad video appeared and of course because of the algorithm there started to be more and more. My daughter is very empathic. Like me, she takes in people’s emotions and makes them her own. She’s too young to know how to handle this. That one sad video spiraled into many and she couldn’t escape from them after she turned her phone off. The videos weren’t super bad or inappropriate for most kids. But because my daughter is so sensitive, it was enough that it bothered her when she tried to go to sleep at night. We talked and she made the decision herself to take a break from Shorts. After a while, she was able to fall asleep with no issues. I would talk to her about it every once in a while to make sure she was okay. Now when she watches shorts and when one of those videos show up, she hits the thumbs down and it changes to something else that she can handle.
I don’t allow them on TikTok (I don’t even have it), even though I think Shorts are just as bad (it’s all the same IMO). We took a break from Shorts for a few weeks and I could tell the difference IMMEDIATELY. They could still go on YouTube, they just couldn’t watch Shorts. I trust they didn’t. We had the conversation, I explained the Why (always explain the Why – that’s another post in itself). After those few weeks we re-visited the subject and I told them they could start watching Shorts again.
But I made a mistake, I didn’t set a limit. They have limits on overall electronic usage, but we didn’t talk about how long they could be on Shorts. And guess what, same attitude came back the boy. We had another conversation. We decided to have a limit of 30 minutes of Shorts when on the electronics. He sets his own timer and he gets off Shorts when the timer goes off. Now I know I’m going to hear, c’mon Wisco – how do you really know he’s only on it for 30 minutes. Because, I tell him the Why. And he respects it. We have a conversation, not a dictatorship (sometimes…I mean I am the boss). I’ve always done this their entire lives. I’ll say no, but immediately after I say no, I explain Why.
So what the hell am I rambling about here? I guess the point I’m trying to make is just take a damn break and have face to face interactions with your kids once in a while. Even if it’s just for 15 minutes and then you’re all back on your phones for another 2 hours. They’re going to remember those minutes with you, trust me!
