Spend time together
When it comes to taking screen time breaks, make sure children have something else they can do. Maybe that’s writing stories or making crafts or playing outside. Often, complaints around device breaks relate to ‘boredom’ or not knowing what else to do.
If screen time breaks are new, this is especially important. Try doing new things together at first to help children find different options.
“Instead of simply telling them to put their devices down,” says mum Whitney Fleming, “I would say, ‘Hey, let’s go thrifting.’ Or, ‘I looked up a new trail to hike’. . . . It was exhausting for me to work and try to fill their phone void. I had to sacrifice a lot of my free time and the things that I wanted to do for myself. I had to endure a lot — A LOT — of eye rolls and sighs and how they could turn the word ‘mom’ into three syllables. But I kept at it. . . . And excruciatingly slowly, I noticed a change.”
See her full story via this Facebook post.