5 conversation starters about screen time
Great alternatives to "how much screen time did you have today?"
We’re often using screen time to get things done, but we also are trying to be aware of what our kids are doing on screens.
But if we ask “how much screen time did you have? What did you do?” we may not get much info.
Instead, as simple as it sounds: talk to your kids about screen time just like you’d talk to them about what they did at a friend’s house, or at school, or at soccer practice.
The point of these questions isn’t to figure out if they’re doing something “bad” with their screen time.
The point is to CONNECT with our kids.
When screen time is something we don’t know much about or see much of, it’s easy to think of it as “their” thing, not something we will ever “get”.
But this means we miss out on understanding how and why our kids enjoy screens and the skills they may be developing when they use screens.
Even if they do something passive like watching a show, knowing the kinds of stories our kids enjoy, or how they manage the feelings that come up from an emotional show, can lead to important digital literacy conversations that we may not know how to have otherwise.
Plus, it shows our kids that we care about their interests because we care about them, which can lead to important conversations in the years to come.