Minimizing Screen Time Without the Fight

It looks like we have our first question. I try to minimize screen time, but it's a fight every time. Then they are miserable and hateful. How can I address this? Uh, many parents are, are responding, dealing with that type of a concern. And, and the reason why we're dealing with that is, uh, again, we become habituated or it becomes a pattern. And, and so we become concerned, but as parents, but in reality, our children, they become acclimated to their devices. And so when you take something away, they, they're gonna respond in a frustrated way. A few years ago, let me give you an example of this. A few years ago, they took, uh, mam, these little rats, mice, and they would give them a space where they could go, uh, push a little lever and they would get juice, push the lever, get more juice, push the lever, get more juice, push the lever, get more juice, push the lever, get more juice. Well, when they took away the juice and made it just stay plain water, they threw a, they threw a temper tantrum, an absolute temper tantrum. And, and so the reason why is because they're looking for the sugar and now they're not getting the sugar. So when we try to take something away from a, a child who's become so accustomed to having the game or, or whatever the communication is, they, they too might throw a temper tanner, which is why when we start with these devices, we need to have a informed choice. We have to have boundaries, we have to have conversations about limitations. That's one of the things I like about Cal Newport's work, where he talks about digital minimalism. Again, I, it's interesting, we might not think it's a problem until it's a problem. And then once it's a problem, we're like, oh, now what do we do? And that's why I think early education informing ourselves about the devices is a great starting point. But that doesn't help this parent's question, right? This parent's already dealing with it. So my specific suggestion for this parent is find activities that you can do with your child that are not electronic device, uh, device based. So we're gonna go do a family activity. We might go bowling, we might go to the swimming pool, we might go on a hike, we might go on a bike ride. But what you're trying to do is find other activities that your child can participate in that's out of that realm and help them find the satisfaction of doing something else that's interesting, that's fun that they can engage in. So I would say a healthy distraction would be one of the core things I would start with. The other thing I would suggest here is a concept that is a foundation of all things that I try to incorporate into the work that I do. And the concept is relationships first. Sometimes you're not gonna have influence with your child because maybe if your child feels like all we're doing is fighting. So I would wanna focus on the relationship connection first. How is your child doing? What are their concerns? What's their life like? Who's their best friend? What are, what are the challenges at school they're facing? What are the good things happening at school? So I would work on trying to develop those things and as we develop those things, our conversation about the computer and time on the computer becomes more important. And, and so those are some of the things that I would start with tonight.