Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy limiting TV & computer game time

My boys are only (sickness excepted) allowed to watch TV one afternoon on a weekday, and then on family movie night (Saturday). We had dreadful issues with whinging and nagging until I came up with my brilliant (she says modestly) solution - before being turned off the TV is set to bluescreen. The child lock is on the box, so all I have to do is hide the remote and there's nothing they can do about it. They don't even bother nagging any more. If only all the other whinge-worthy issues were as easy to solve.

The boys are very much nicer without TV in the morning.

I think we are much more the opposite direction. DS wakes up at 5:30-6 every morning. I am not a nice person that early. He is allowed to watch TV, play quietly or read. He usually watches 2 hours of TV in the morning- only kid shows and only stuff on the DVR. Once or twice a week in the summer we'll watch a movie together. During school, he can watch one 30 min show when he gets home and that's it.

Computer- he can pretty much play educational games as much as he wants. He once spent 3 hours on Dreambox Learning. He rarely asks to play other games.

Wii/Nintendo DS- My husband is a huge gamer. We don't allow games during the school week but it's common for DS and DH to play a few hours on Saturday morning together. I have no problems with that. I credit Pokemon for my child's ability to read so voraciously! I told him I hated it and wouldn't read it to him so he insisted on teaching himself to read so he could figure it all out.

I think I am very different in my views than most of the parents on the site. My children are allowed to play on the computer daily, they watch tv daily, and they do not have strict daily limits on any of that. I do nudge at them if I think they've been at it too long, and I do stop them if they start arguing about it. The big rule is that homework is done before anything else, and that on chore days, those have to be finished as well.

My oldest son does not have a lot of interest in the computer. He will play it, get tired of it, and want to go outside and play. So, I don't worry about it with him. He enjoys the DS, but mostly in the car.

My youngest son, age 6, has the addictive personality his dad did. He can play for a long time. He also gets mad at it and will continue playing. He is realizing at a very young age, however, the tradeoffs he sometimes makes and he has begun to understand the consequences of those tradeoffs. So, he decides to play on the computer while his brother goes out to play with the neighborhood kids and realizes at dinner time that he has missed his chance to do something with his friends. He gets annoyed. He has begun to resent the hold that the TV has on him and asks me to turn it off at times so he won't get sucked in. I am happy with this, I know what teen age years look like in a child like him who has never learned to regulate himself. I feel that we are making good progress towards him learning to manage his time at an early age instead of me managing his time for him.

I'm far more lax in the summer than during the school year, but during the school year the rules for DD7 and DS10 are these (I need to preface this with the info that we homeschool, so homework in the evening isn't really an issue): no computer or TV during the week unless the family is watching something specific together. Each day they complete standing chores by 5 p.m. to earn one mom buck. On Friday after school they can exchange mom bucks for a rationed amount of candy or for computer time (1 buck = 20 minutes for a maximum of 1h40), plus they get 2 hours of computer time for free to use at their discretion over the weekend. Over the summer, additional time to be used during the week can be earned by doing more involved / less pleasant chores, like weeding or cleaning the bathrooms. If any character issues or academic issues arise we dock the free weekend time (ie, if general responsibilities of family membership aren't met, optional family privileges are revoked).

This system has worked pretty well for us. The expectations are clear in advance and can be tweaked. The drawback is that my son can be a little bit mercenary, but it does draw a clear picture of working for privileges, and that the work has to come before the paycheck. It's likely that I will be reducing the "free" weekend time this year as my son will go to a magnet environmental school with a heavy workload (not that our homeschool wasn't heavy; there just wasn't all the time-sucking classroom stuff!).

HTH,
KDV

Sorry, I just now saw that you don't want to do an earning method -- but, I think it would probably be good to still tie screen time that they choose to completing ordinary family responsibilities -- not chores, per se, but good grades and behavior, and if your standards are not met, then screen time temporarily gets scaled back until there's an improvement.

Your DH sounds like mine except mine isn't very interested in academia, but he is still successful, smart, and well-rounded.

The only problem I see is that DH is still addicted to TV, and our TV is constantly on even if he isn't watching it. Maybe a little moderation would be helpful (as is true for everything else in life).