Parenting: Spending Quality Time with Children

Parenting: Getting Your Children to Spend Quality Time with You - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Getting Your Children to Spend Quality Time With You This is a really huge issue that is confronting almost every family I talk to these days. There’s just so much distraction from what I call screen time. So, that includes phones, video games, ipods. And we really want to help kids realize that they’re living a life, and it doesn’t have to be a virtual life to be very satisfying. In fact, they need time away from screens. So have a family meeting and decide what your daily limit for screen time is going to be for each of the children. And maybe you have divergent ages in your household, so you might have different screen times for each child. But you really want to be sure that there is a limit set, and you want to include the children in the decision that you’re making about that limit, too, because if they feel like it’s just handed down from on high, they’re not going to cooperate that well. If they feel included in the decision, they’re part of it, and they’re going to be much more willing to go along with the program as it’s set up. So, maybe you decide an hour a day is enough time for screen time for your children. And I think that’s reasonable. I think that’s reasonable for during the school year and during the summer, because there are so many other things to do during the summer. Make a list of all the alternative things that children can do. In fact, have the kids make the list, and then when they have to turn off their screens, their computers, or their ipods, or their televisions, or videos, then they go to their list. So, if they say, “Mom, I’m bored what should I do,” just say, “Check your list.” That’s all. And then they have the sense of, “Oh yeah, There’s other things I do and here are the things I decide to do,” so that it’s not mom having to battle with them all the time, or dad having to battle with them all the time about, “Get off that computer now. It’s time to get off that computer.” Another really nice thing that I taught a dad whose teenage boy was on the computer too much was just to invite him to do other things with him. So dad had to decide what kind of activities he would like to include his son in, and he just simply invited him. And when the kid felt invited instead of commanded to get off the computer, it worked really, really well. So I really recommend trying just an invitation, “Let’s go do some,” you know, “building out in the garage. Let’s go get some supplies. Let’s go get food for dinner tonight.” And including children in your life is a really powerful way to get them away from the screens. Also, nature. We’re finding out now that there’s such a thing as nature deficit disorder, and kids really need to spend more time where it’s green. There’s even a new study that shows that kids with ADHD have their symptoms reduced if they look at something green during the day when they’re at school or at home. If they look out the window and just see a brick wall, their symptoms are worse. If they look at a beautiful tree, their symptoms are better. So, it just tells you that we are wired to be in nature. We need nature to be healthy, and if kids are in front of screens they’re being deprived of nature. And they’re also gaining weight and they’re also getting diabetes at an alarming rate. So, it just really is time to take control over those screens because they are really hurting out children. Yes, there are some wonderful educational opportunities on the computer, but please, make sure that that gets balanced out with a lot of interaction with your family. Make a decision together and then stick to it.