WATCH TO THE END or you’ll miss the reveal ;)
Many of us may worry our kids are “addicted” to screens, video games, sugar, or other potentially “bad” things in life, and yet, we don’t seem concerned if they’re equally preoccupied with soccer, or painting, or broccoli.
My scenario here may seem far-fetched…except it’s not. There is one thing in my child’s life that I have to actually monitor and make sure isn’t taking up too much of their time…and it’s reading books.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: our relationship to something is more important than the thing itself. If our child’s relationship to screens is causing a problem, then it’s worth looking into. If you’re unsure where to start, check out Chapters 4-6 of my book as well as Chapter 8 for info on what to be concerned about.
But just as our kids can have a potentially problematic relationship to screens, they could also have a perfectly functional and balanced relationship to screens while having a problematic relationship to books. Yet, our attention is more likely to gravitate to the screen.
Why? Because we’re told that screens are “bad” or wasteful leisure, and books are “good”.
Never mind the fact that a screen could be a book, or that screens are often providing accessibility to books or literacy, but all leisure has purpose and value in our lives.
My child needs to learn that sitting at the dinner table and being in conversation with family is important and valuable. They need to build the skill of waiting or feeling bored or impatient without constant entertainment or distraction. And if they are struggling to do that because they would rather draw, or read, or watch their iPad, the “problem” is not drawing, reading, or the iPad. The “problem” is it’s hard to be impatient and it’s hard to build the skill.
This doesn’t stop us from building the skill, but by being neutral and not pathologizing one medium over another, like screens, we can focus on the skills at hand and not end up in a power struggle.
