OK, I’ll admit it: As a parent, I get tired of saying no. That’s why I gravitate to plans or programs to help kids limit the length of time they spend in the front of the TV or on the computer, rather than the endless nagging: ”You’ve already used your TV time. (And this time I mean it.)” Here are some tricks that kids often find more palatable than a more straightforward “two hours per day” mandate.

1. The poker game - Children start with a number of poker chips at the beginning of the week, with each chip representing one hour (or a half hour) of TV time. They can spend them in a splurge, or  do it one at a time.

2. If this, then that - The Boolean approach to screen time. Time is earned by doing something else. It can be time spent outside: For every hour of active time outdoors, the child earns a half-hour of TV time. A trick some families I know have used successfully–especially over summer vacation–is that kids can’t watch TV until they’ve logged an hour of reading.

3. Appointment TV- Plan TV time around a beloved show, avoiding the pitfall of hunkering down to watch whatever is on…and on…and on. Make a calendar with your child, limiting their viewing to the shows they include on the calendar. Obviously, using a DVR is a variation on this theme.

 4. Time’s up - Use a TV timer (they make them specifically for the kids), the sleep timer on your TV or an hourglass. Let the kids get mad at the timer, not you.

5. Couch potatoes - This one takes discipline. But if you tell your children that they can only watch TV when you are sitting alongside them, I can guarantee that you’ll feel renewed enthusiasm about turning it off. The obvious downside: No more using the TV as a babysitter.

6. Mute it - Require your children to mute all commercials. While this does not necessarily limit the amount of TV time, it does mitigate some of the advertising “damage.” You’ll be hearing less whining on family trips to the grocery or toy store.

7. Tempting choices - Most kids, when offered an appealing choice, will not choose television. Plan one or two activities a day that you know will trump TV. But the key word is plan–this rarely works on the fly. Or buy one of my favorite books, 365 TV-free Activities (or one like it), and make a game of having your kids pick an activity.

8. True confessions - If you’re guilty of too much TV time, make it a family project to cut back. Fess up to the kids and commit to watching less–together.

9. Neighborhood watch- Surely, you’ve heard friends complain about their own kids’ screen time. Behavioral scientests tell us that one of the most compelling ways to prompt action is to communicate that “everyone’s doing it.” Get a group of neighborhood or school families on the same program. Your kids will be more motivated knowing they’re not alone. (And you’ll have a ton of support.)

photo credit: Tanya Ryno

I recently had to send this email message to my normally well-behaved 12-year-old:

Hey, Cheechooguy (or whatever your screen name is these days),

You seem to be circumventing (that means “going around”) parental controls lately by asking permission to add people to your instant messaging list, then signing into my email and giving yourself permission. This is NOT how parental controls are supposed to work. Please don’t do this anymore, or your supply of bean/cheese burritos, brownies and ESPN will be cut off. If you force your dad and me to change our email passwords to something even we won’t be able to remember, we will be eternally crabby. Seriously.

Love you,

Mom

[Note: This is not a child who engages in risky behavior. If he were, I would have a totally different response.]

photo credit: craigmdennis

Photo credit: eyeliam

 The New York Times reported yesterday that cyberspace may not be as threatening to children and teens as we’re led to believe:

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.

The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series. One attorney general was quick to criticize the group’s report.

The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children.

But the report concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

Several attorneys general disputed the results of the task force’s report.

Photo credit: ericskiff

We have a new house rule: No scary movies for Alex after noon (he’s five). Otherwise, we all suffer. Trust me. It’s the same screen version of my own “No caffeine after 3 pm” rule. It may feel so good going down, but you’re gonna pay for it later. And we all need a good night’s sleep. So for now, we’re all agreed. Harry Potter is confined to morning in our house.

Photo credit: AlohaMama

I just read a fascinating thought from Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic this month about why teenage girls read:

The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life—one that she slips into during her sulks and silences, during her endless hours alone in her room, or even just when she’s gazing out the classroom window while all of Modern European History, or the niceties of the passé composé, sluice past her. This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs—to be undisturbed while she works out the big questions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others—are met precisely by the act of reading.

I so related to this — as a teen I read every romantic novel from every century. And I’ve always wondered why as an adult I enjoy reading very much but don’t seem to need it as much as in my youth. This explains it.

But it also set me to thinking, could this be part of the attraction of video games for boys? Are they perhaps working out their place in a competitive world, in a secret, safe way?

He did well with his first item, all the while considering it an experiment. In other words, the bar was set low — if it sold, the experiment would be a success. And if a few mistakes were made along the way (such as underestimating shipping costs), well, they’d be lessons learned. Mission accomplished. Now he’s on to reselling the CD he just received as a gift but already owned.

[Disclaimer: Theoretically, he's doing this over the shoulder of his parents (who actually complete the transaction), as eBay requires buyers and sellers to be 18 or older.]

I love that the Internet is a great equalizer: Kids can do as well as adults and geography is meaningless (unless you underestimate shipping costs). When I enter our garage these days, its overflowing shelves no longer evoke guilt about never getting around to holding that garage sale. Instead, I think of a young boy who can earn some cash, learn a new skill, and get excited about entrepreneurship. Now we just need to negotiate a parental cut of the earnings before he gets too successful.

Greg and Connie were born in New Jersey, but from the moment the Internet struck, they might as well have just arrived from Taiwan. When the Internet landed on them, it redistributed the prestige and authority that goes with a general understanding of the ways of the world away from the grown-ups and to the child. The grown-ups now depended on the child to translate for them. Technology had turned them into a family of immigrants.

Those of us who were born into a world where the Internet didn’t exist, will always have a longing–spoken or unspoken–for the old country. The fact is, that’s a world most of our children have never visited. Neither is it a world to which we will return.