The Battle Against Teens and Screens (1 Viewer)

[Lehigh98]

Hey guys,
I'm curious to see if others are having similar problems and how you've dealt with it and any success stories of tales of warning. My 15yo son seems to have a pretty good screen addiction going. I don't want to totally blame covid but being stuck at home with only your computer and phone to communicate with friends didn't help. We could also see the early signs but when your only interaction with friends was online / on the phone we did not really restrict usage except bedtime. Unfortunately, online interaction has continued to be his preference for interacting with friends. He still goes to his sports / activities and job but when he gets home his first instinct is to get online (Fortnight, Minecraft, whatever games they're playing nowadays).

We're reaching the breaking point now as he's got a friend that seems to stay online all night. So far we've progressed from: asking him to go to bed (he kept playing), setting the wifi to turn off (he got around iPhone restrictions and used the hotspot on his phone), taking the phone at bedtime (he grabbed his old chromebook and got online), etc, etc. His argument is that he still gets up in time for his stuff but he's tired, cranky, not at his best for activities / work, etc. I somewhat understand because I did similar at his age staying up to watch Letterman sometimes or not putting down a good book. But after going back and for and turning off the wifi last night at midnight, my wife woke up in the middle of the night and found him playing at 3am when he needed to get up for 7am training.

So we've done our best to explain the issue and problems this causes and why we're trying to restrict his usage but his argument is that other kids play late and that he still gets up when he needs to so he thinks it justifies disobeying and lying to us. There are obviously aspects to this that remind me of addictive behavior and that's definitely worrying. (Denial, mood swings, lying, hiding his activity, etc) We need to get back on the right track before HS soccer tryouts next week (and then hopefully the season) and school so he gets a good start and doesn't struggle with grades. My instinct is yanking the computer from his room completely but then he doesn't have that interaction with his friends and of course the damn schools now use the computers / internet for assignments / homework so he's got that excuse too.

Anyway, probably just venting here as I figure out my next steps. I'm probably going to write up some type of manifesto / new rules and an explanation of why (writing so it doesn't just end up with him interrupting / arguing when I'm trying to explain). Taking away phone / devices / power cord to computer (?), etc at 11pm on school / need to get up early days. My wife is worried about teenage depression, etc so has been against these stronger restrictions but we need to try something else.

Anyway what have your experiences been? How did you handle? Any success stories out there? Thanks!

 

[Timmay]

We are experiencing this issue as well with our 12 year old son and am interested to see how others handle this. It was probably at its peak about a year 1/2 ago, when like you caught him up in the middle of night gaming with some friends. I freaked out on him and unplugged his Xbox right then and there and told his butt to go to bed. At that point we took away his games on any school day -he could only play during the weekends. But if he isn't on his games then he switches to his phone or he watches TV so he is still technically glued to a screen. We try to involve him in almost everything we do and force him to go outside and play for a set period of time but that doesn't always work. No TV or phones while eating dinner and we try setting time limits on things, but in an ideal day for him, he will switch from one device to another. (Xbox/VR/TV/Phone/Tablet).

We have already set some boundaries for the new school year. Only TV and as of now phone during the school week and that is only allowed once homework is finished. I will physically take the other items away and put them in my room until the weekend. He is still too young where he doesn't care about girls and isnt old enough to work, but I am kind of looking forward to those days where he hopefully cares about something else more than video games and electronics. I hope this ages well.

A part of me however is also saying to myself, how much TV and video games did I play as a kid and I think I turned out alright, I know I was told to go outside a lot as a kid and I did and I loved it, but i also loved video games and watching TV as well. But times are different now, kids dont ride bikes as much as I used to. I lived on my bike. The amount of technology that is out there now a days is amazing and if I was kid I would want to play on all those things too. Hell a lot of adults still do play on all those things. I can't fault him sometimes because I am sitting there on my phone checking stats, scrolling twitter, playing a game and my wife is scrolling TikTok or facebook. Times are different and kids have the most technology possible at their disposal.

 

[ChiefD]

Taking away phone / devices / power cord to computer (?), etc at 11pm on school / need to get up early days. My wife is worried about teenage depression, etc so has been against these stronger restrictions but we need to try something else.

You have to do this. At this point it's the only way. Explain that you have been reasonable on his terms but now you have to do it on your terms.

It's gonna suck but this is the next step.

If it's me I just remove all the electronics completely out of his room. Our kids don't have TV's and computers in their rooms for this reason.

 

[Ilov80s]

The real key isn’t explaining the problem to him, he won’t listen. It’s getting him to see how it’s a problem himself. Not easy or quick but that’s how people actually combat addiction- if that’s what you think this is.

 

[DA RAIDERS]

Couple of combos here - a 15 year old with hormones and screen time. To me it looks like you have been understanding and tried to work with him.

But now it's time to be the parent (and I don't mean that you haven't been before. just mean it's time to set the hard boundary.) Take all electronics out of his room and take his phone at night. And do it in a reasonable manner:

"we aren't doing this as a punishment and we are not taking away your stuff during normal hours. but when it's time to go to bed it's time. we've tried to be reasonable on your terms but now we are doing it on our terms."

It's gonna suck but you have to.

This is what we did/do with my daughter. If she really messes up, we take any and all ways to connect online away. Including the Alexa in her room . If it connects to the internet, we take it. It gets the point across. And is rarely needed now.

 

[The Commish]

We take it away when behavior isn't correct. It's been made clear it's a privilege to have the devices, not a right. During school, internet to our kids is shut off at 8pm and the devices themselves have "use" times on them of an hour a day for our 11 year old. Bed times are established for all devices and they are shut down at 9pm.

 

[stbugs]

I’ve had some times where we took away the phones but damn if my wife and I don’t use our phones as well. I think the biggest thing is having the human interaction. My sons all dealt with COVID but they all have good friends and/or girlfriends that they hang out with in person. The younger two play/played a lot of sports and work out almost daily which helps as well. The oldest just graduated from college and lives a couple hours away with/next to 4 or 5 good friends from high school and he’s already traveled internationally 4 times (not spring break) with college and high school friends. Got lucky with a couple friends, but he’s also the most outgoing.

We’ve done a lot of trips with a bunch of families and that also helps. I don’t worry about phone usage because of all of the IRL stuff. Sports, working out and jobs also help to make sure that they are good and tired at the end of the day with normal sleep patterns. You’ll never get rid of the phones because all kids use them to communicate.

Even stuff like making food where the phone is a recipe or going to stores or going out to eat may help as well. I do remember when all of my boys were pretty shy/easily embarrassed in public but I forced the interaction. You won’t get a side of ranch unless you ask.

Good luck to all, it’s absolutely not easy with phones/gaming that make it a lot easier to interact without feeling uncomfortable. That uncomfortable is needed though to make future interactions easier like going to college or getting jobs or hitting on your future wife/husband!

 

[nirad3]

My son is 10, 11 in November and is definitely showing signs of addiction to screens.

My daughter is 12, 13 in February and while she is on Netflix/YouTube quite a bit, she has a lot of other "non-screen" activities that she takes part in so not as worried about her.

 

[massraider]

My son is 10, 11 in November and is definitely showing signs of addiction to screens.

My daughter is 12, 13 in February and while she is on Netflix/YouTube quite a bit, she has a lot of other "non-screen" activities that she takes part in so not as worried about her.

This is the thing, I have no idea how a parent is supposed to limit without major activities going on. 8 year olds cannot be sucking down 9 hours of screen time.

You parents have my empathy.

 

[Yambag]

We take it away when behavior isn't correct. It's been made clear it's a privilege to have the devices, not a right. During school, internet to our kids is shut off at 8pm and the devices themselves have "use" times on them of an hour a day for our 11 year old. Bed times are established for all devices and they are shut down at 9pm.

This. We have two teenage daughters and even set expectations before they had phones. No devices in their rooms at bed time. Follow through is key, both positive and negative, but it can work.

 

[ChiefD]

My son is 10, 11 in November and is definitely showing signs of addiction to screens.

My daughter is 12, 13 in February and while she is on Netflix/YouTube quite a bit, she has a lot of other "non-screen" activities that she takes part in so not as worried about her.

This is the thing, I have no idea how a parent is supposed to limit without major activities going on. 8 year olds cannot be sucking down 9 hours of screen time.

You parents have my empathy.

You just have to. When our kids were young they had a 1 hour per day limit on screens (video game, ipad). No phones until they were 13. No electronics in room.

We also forced them to play outside. We are outside almost every day for hours, so they just played outside.

Go play legos. Read a book. It's always difficult but that's what parenting is. As they've gotten older they are certainly on their phones more, but we still make a point to say: "get off your phone and come outside." And they do.

It's tough, but parenting is tough. My father-in-law gave me this advice when my wife was pregnant for the first time: "You are not their friend. You are their parent."

 

[massraider]

It's tough, but parenting is tough

All this screen addiction is an opportunity.

Any kid that is NOT addicted to screens, and can speak and socialize with no effort, will write their own ticket in life.

Because there will be so few of them.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

It's tough, but parenting is tough

All this screen addiction is an opportunity.

Any kid that is NOT addicted to screens, and can speak and socialize with no effort, will write their own ticket in life.

Because there will be so few of them.

You couldn’t be more correct, imo.

Back when my wife was clamoring that ours get phones because “everyone else has them” I responded with “I don’t want my children to be like everyone else”.

We haven’t had many problems with screen time but I’m noticing my wife and I are on them more. We might have to place rules on the adults in our house.

 

[The Commish]

My kids are 15 (soon 16), 11 and 6. The rules were set with my now 15 year old. He didn't have a phone until he was 13. He had no social media accounts until he was 15 and we have access to those accounts. Yeah, he can have different accounts on the side if they wanted to go through the effort, but that sort of thing to teenagers is like trying to keep a secret among politicians in the government....the secrets just won't/don't last long. It's not worth the effort and he doesn't want to be without the phone if he gets caught. The other two have watched how things have gone down with him and began to "get" how it works in our house.

It likely helps, me anyway, that I have absolutely zero love loss for phones. I hate them with a passion and don't know where mine is half the time so there is nothing I could care less about my kids "missing out on" than phones.

ETA: The hardest part of the whole thing is my wife's terrible example....she's absolutely addicted to her phone. I just use her obsession like they did with eggs in the frying pan and "this is your brain on drugs" ads back in the day.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

remove all the electronics completely out of his room

My oldest is 17 now and has shown he can handle his business (good student, self-motivated on important stuff, is available when needed, gets enough sleep, etc), so we've relaxed a lot of stuff we were doing up until recently, but this was non-negotiable for us at night.

My youngest won't get a phone or a social media account until he's 14.

We used to have stricter rules about screen time, but COVID really messed that up for us. In addition to school, it was how they connected with friends who didn't live in the neighborhood.

If I could go back like 10 years we'd have had way stricter rules though. I don't really know anyone that looks back and thinks they wished they'd been more permissive with electronics.

 

[Galileo]

Genie isn't going back in the bottle. My kids are a little older now (19 and almost 21), so I don't stress about it much anymore. We were fairly successful at limiting screen time when they were young, but as they grew older those restrictions got more lackadaisical, especially during COVID when they were in high school. Obviously, they pretty much govern themselves at this point being of college age, and the screen time is very prevalent now in their leisure time activity. There have been many years of lessons about responsibility, human interaction, and being active along the way. Hopefully those lessons have taken root and they maintain balance in their life. I suppose the biggest thing we could do to help mitigate the issue was to keep the kids active with things they enjoyed. The oldest was playing football, basketball and baseball. the youngest was a year round swimmer. Both were heavily involved with robotics. Those sorts of commitments along with activities like family game nights, designated reading time, and even volunteer work helped to reduce the idle time.

Aside from the screen time issue, perhaps more importance should also be placed on what they are doing with that screen time. I used to always run into a bit of an internal conflict as I would be telling my son to get off the computer only to discover he was actually watching videos about high level math and physics content. STOP THAT LEARNING RIGHT NOW!! We, as parents, also need to help promote some balance in the quality of screen time they have as much as the amount.

 

[titusbramble]

Have the WiFi "mysteriously go down"

 

[Jayrod]

Set boundaries/rules, explain the consequences and enforce.

My son lost his phone for 5 days because I caught him lying to me. The "addiction" is also a powerful motivator. He even wrote us a letter to explain why he needed his phone back.