How to handle bad behavior with screens
It’s a choose your own adventure
😩When your kiddo does something "bad" during screen time, how do you handle it? Well, here's 3 different ways you may handle it, because instead of focusing on what the "right" or "wrong" way to handle it is, let's focus instead on why each of these options may be necessary.
❓The other day, I was making dinner while my kiddo played games in the other room, and I started hearing a noise. A weird noise. A noise I hadn't heard before.
🫠And it didn't sound like a good noise
🤔So how did I respond?
😤 It depends on the day! If I were dysregulated, (tired, hungry, stressed, etc.), if I were on my last nerve, or maybe if I were being distracted by my child and I needed the noise to stop, I might react authoritatively. Calling out a threat or a demand might be the only thing I can manage.
🥱If I were exhausted, fully absorbed in a meeting in the other room, desperately in need of a shower, or in some other way needing the time without being disrupted, I might choose to let it go. If we've just gotten home from a long day and I know my child is hungry, tired, or "over it", I might let things escalate, let my child continue making whatever noise they're making, if it means I can finish my shower in peace.
🎉On this particular day, I could step away from making dinner, I felt calm and collected, and I had time to spend with my child and didn't need to attend to other things. So I intervened, figured out why this particular noise was happening, what the feeling was, and what some alternatives were.
💪I had the capacity to problem solve with my child AND make clear that if the noise happened again we would turn off the game and try something else instead.
🤔Some may think that the third option is "best" and in a vacuum, that may be true.
🤯But what is "best" depends on our needs, our child's needs, and our current reality.
😵💫If I don't have the capacity to help my child through a difficult feeling and build a skill of regulation, then trying to do the third option might result in me exploding, my child crying, dinner burning. Who benefits from that? Ultimately, none of us in the situation do.
👀Do I WANT to let "bad" behaviors go? No. But if I am not capable of teaching a skill and my child is not currently capable of receiving it, it might be "better" to let it go in the moment, and find a way to address it later, like talking about it at the dinner table.
🔀Parenting is a "choose your own adventure" with very high stakes, but no one decision we make is going to seal our fate.