How To Reduce Kids’ Screen Time Without Tears And Tantrums

The real reason kids crave more and more screen time isn't just that screens are in and of themselves addictive and a dopamine drive, but actually because everything else in their real life seems boring. Welcome back to HiFam, I'm Abitel. I'm the mother of five, I'm the founder of HiFam, and I'm here on a mission to help you to create a strong family culture. I really believe that family is the most meaningful project of our lives. But unfortunately, raising kids in the screen generation does have its massive challenges. And screen addiction, fascination with screens, whining, nagging, difficulty setting boundaries around screens, worry about the type of content that they're consuming or the people they're connecting with or the role models they're getting and the ideas that they are being infected with is a big part of today's day and age of parenting. I think it's true that about four out of every five questions I get are something to do with the screen. The tantrums after I switch it off or the fact that I'm not sure what is age appropriate or that I can't keep up with my 14 year old's usage or that I keep fighting with my eight year old over how much screen time is too much. Worry about this screen is so normal, so pervasive, so common that that's why I'm recording this little mini series all about screen usage. And I'm trying to come at it from fresh angles that you may not have heard yet or try to peak your thought process to look at it in fresh new ways. So in the first episode, I discussed how it's not kids that are addicted to the screens, although it's them too, but that starts with us, with our relationship with our own screens and our relationship with them on screens. I try to hand back the authority to us parents and remind us that we're the ones paying the bills, buying the devices, and we can be the ones to switch it off and to say no more, that we need to feel strong and competent and confident in our role as the authority in the household who sets the rules. So if you're a little shaky on that and you haven't watched that, then pause this one and watch that one first because today we're gonna be diving into the second topic where we're gonna be trying to look at screens from a fresh perspective. Today, I wanna talk about the uncomfortable truth that you are competing with Netflix, with YouTube, with Fortnite. You, your home, your household, your family culture is actually the counterpart. It's what you're offering your child to do when they're not on the screen. What do I mean by that? What I mean is this, many of us parents, myself included, feel helpless, feel exasperated, feel worried about the amount of time our children might spend on a screen. We don't want them playing video games, watching TV mindlessly, scrolling on social media accounts. But the trouble is that many of us don't take the time to truly craft a creative alternative. It's one thing getting a child off a screen, having that parental authority, that leadership to say enough is enough, the ability to set boundaries, the ability to not buy the tablets or the smartphones for early usage. All of those parental decisions, right? Those rules that we set, those guidelines, that confidence, the boundaries, is basically falling under the kind of category of saying no. It's one thing to say no to screens. You need quite a lot of gumption, quite a stiff spine, quite broad shoulders, quite a lot of clarity. You need a vision, you need to understand that you are the authority in the household and then you need to be comfortable setting those boundaries and following through on them. Saying no to screens is one side of it. But really, that's just the beginning. What follows from there is what we say yes to. If you're asking a child not to spend many hours every day on a screen, you need to be asking them or offering them or tempting and seducing them to spend that time elsewhere. And that is, I think, where many of us come up against our own, maybe, let's say, fair kind of attitude, our laziness, our lack of time and resources, our busyness, our need for peace and quiet. And then it's just easier to revert back to the screen. Like, oh, no, you can't make slime right now. Well, no, I can't drive you over to Dave's house. So just, you know what? Keep watching. It's so much easier to just allow them to carry on using this little device that's entertaining them than it is to get up off our butts and do the parenting thing, where we're engaged, where we're making plans, where we're cleaning up messes, or where we're actually teaching them things. So today, I wanna get creative with you. I want us to brainstorm ways that we can offer a meaningful home life, a meaningful family culture, where screens aren't the most seductive, you know, the shiniest object, the thing that children need the whole time, because there are actually some really good contenders of other things that your child could be doing. And hopefully, these are things that don't always involve your energy, because that is a finite resource. Your time and attention are going to run out at some point. At some point, you can't be chauffeuring them everywhere, reading them everything, entertaining them, allowing all the messes and all the playdates in the world, or signing them up for all the extracurricular activities. My goal in this video is not to turn you into the number one entertainer, but rather to get strategic with you about creating a family life, a culture at home, that offers rich experiences that aren't necessarily and always accessed through the screen. Now, many of these are gonna be like, duh, of course we do that at home. But I want you to just kind of pause and ask yourself, do I really make this accessible, available, exciting, interesting? Do I really position this as a viable alternative to the passive, dopamine-ridden entertainment of the screen? So number one is books, the world of reading. Reading is something that unfortunately has been declining precipitously over the last couple of decades. As the use of screen time has increased in childhood, kids are actually less literate than they used to be, and there's a lot of different contributing factors to that, but screens are one of them. And they're less likely to pick up a physical book. And I think that whilst, as I say, I like technology and I'm okay with technological progress, and with us using things like AI or just entertainment or video games, that's all fine, I also want to strengthen my kids' ability to enjoy reading. The truth is to become a voracious reader, to become a bookworm, you have to kind of overcome the threshold of initial resistance. First of all, you have to become really literate. You have to read well, and that's hard to do. And it takes a lot of practice. And for many kids, it doesn't come easily. After you can read well, it can then flow that you will just enjoy reading, but probably not, because even for very good readers who are technically well-versed in reading, it may not be pleasurable unless they find the right cadence, the right time of day, and the right type of reading material. So I want to take this opportunity to ask you and me to just look around our house and ask ourselves, is reading, are books being portrayed in our house as something that we really value and as something that is totally something you could do on any given afternoon, just as you would flick on the TV? Recently, someone was in my house, and she noticed that one of my kids was just lying on the couch reading, and it wasn't the Sabbath, so we do use electricity, he could have been on a device, but he was just reading. It wasn't his homework, it wasn't for a book report, it was just because he wasn't sure what to do with himself, and so he picked up a book and sat down and read. And I did not realize that this was a special thing. I'm sure for many of you, your kids do this naturally, but this mom told me, she was like, I can't believe he's just reading in the middle of the week without a parent pushing him to. You know, he's seven years old, why is he just reading? How did you do that? And I thought to myself, well, I think a lot of this is inborn temperament, I think it's just his character, I think he loves books in a more natural way than I can take any credit for. But also, there are lots of books around our home. We model reading. I often take a book with me places where I'm going and I sit while I'm having my coffee or whatever, I'm reading a book. I invest budget in books or in trips to the library or however it might be that we make books accessible. And I always try to cater books to my child's age and stage and interests so that they have something to read that's easy to reach for. It's a bit like in Atomic Habits, how James Clear says, if you wanna work out, put your workout clothes right by your bed so that you wear them in the morning, because if you wear them in the morning, that's one less threshold for you to climb over, that's one less obstacle to actually working out. It's going to trigger your brain and prime you that you should just work out. It's gonna make it easier. I think with reading, similar thing is true. If there are books readily available, just sitting on your bedside table, just right there on the coffee table, whatever, waiting to be read, then you're going to kind of establish that as a really good alternative to anything else, like boredom or screen time. So that's one thing. The second thing I thought of is, well, I did spend about two or three years reading with him every afternoon, really short time, like five, 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes, where we sat and we read a few pages together. And that was to really make it fluent for him, make it accessible, but also to build in the habit. So for him, reaching for a book is now something that's quite natural and normal because that's what he would otherwise do. I'll also add that reading doesn't have to necessarily be reading a comic strip or reading a chapter book. It can also be something that you're learning, maybe scripture, maybe history. We kind of have come to think of all learning as coming through a screen. Oh, I should watch a video about it on YouTube or on Ted Kids or on some Khan Academy or something. But it doesn't always have to come through a screen. We can still enjoy the analog experience of opening a book and getting that kind of deeper, longer, more invested process of learning. And that is something that we could do with our kids. Open one of your science books, one of your history books, a book where you're really going to learn something through the book without checking all the time on the screen to figure out more details or to answer more questions, but rather just experiencing what it's like to slow down and to learn in that more old-fashioned way. Now, as I say this, I hear myself saying it and it sounds like, why, Avital, what do you have against modernity? What do you have against learning in a way that's much more effective, that's much more efficient, like through AI? I don't have anything against that. We use those tools in our homes. I just think we also need to offer a family culture that allows you to spend time that isn't always linked to a screen, if that makes sense, that allows you to enjoy things like a conversation or sports or maybe household chores or learning and reading that isn't always on a screen and thus gives you the message that there's an alternative world. I think kids are very addicted to the screen because everything seems to come through that, communication, information, planning, entertainment, and I'm trying to create a family culture where not everything is through a screen. So it's true, we don't use a screen at all on Sabbath, so that's at least one day out of the week where my kids see that, yes, you can, you can survive, you can have a good day without any screens involved whatsoever, but I think that there are other ways throughout the week that is important to show them, you wanna entertain yourself right now, you're feeling bored, you have a tummy ache, you wanna lie down, that's fine, doesn't always have to involve watching, you could also be reading. The second thing that I try to offer in my family culture that I think is helpful is art and creativity. Even this is something that has now been transferred online for a lot of people, right? They're doing pixel art, they're doing drawing on the phone, they're making a emoji head, all of that stuff is fine, but it can't really replace the embodied physical, tactile experience of arts and crafts where you're learning to knit or crochet or sew or embroider or clay or slime or whatever it is that you might be doing, beading, drawing, painting, I don't care. But offering creativity through a hands-on experience is a very compelling thing to do that isn't on a screen that I think many of us shy away from because of the mess or because it demands all sorts of stuff. And I get that, I really do. In my book, Reclaim Play, I teach you all about setting up a messy zone, having an area of the home, even small, even just a tray that's dedicated to things, spilling, to mixing things, to painting things, to things getting a bit messy and maybe even that surface, like whatever it is, that table or that tray or that tablecloth, being dedicated to getting dirty and allowing your child to get messy, to get that sensory exploration. When they're very young, with toddlers, that's a kinetic sand and Play-Doh and that type of thing. But as they grow older, it might be things like 3D printing, printing with a 3D pen, modeling clay, painting, those types of things that, yeah, even an 11-year-old, a 15-year-old will find interest in doing these things as opposed to being on screen. So if you're saying no to the screen, again, the theme of this video is, what are you saying yes to? Does your child have access to those materials? Do you encourage it? Do you allow it? Remember, if you're saying no to screens, but also no to painting, then you've got to ask yourself, what are we saying yes to? What am I providing my child with that's gonna really challenge their brain and entertain them and bring them fun and joy and learning in their life if they're not allowed screen time? Art and creativity is a really good, I think, an important pathway forward for all children because it's also very protective in terms of their mental health. It's naturally soothing, it calms the brain, whereas screen usage often kind of spikes our anxiety and our inhibition and our self-consciousness and our fascination with materialism and consumerism. Being creative is kind of the polar opposite energy to that. It's where I am trying to create something, not just consume something. It's where I'm being active, not passive. It's where I'm being tactile and embodied and physical, not just digital and virtual. So there's something about it that really counterbalances all of that. And there's a lot of interesting research to show that this helps with self-regulation, which parent doesn't want that? It helps with soothing anxieties and depressions. Who amongst us wouldn't like that for our child, right? And many other benefits beside. So this is very good for our children's mental health, mental wellbeing, mental stability and toughness, emotional stability, their ability to express themselves through their art, to explore things. And it also is a really good and viable kind of counterbalance to the time that they spend passively entertained on a screen. So look around your house, do a little bit of an intake and ask yourself, am I providing an area for creativity? Am I offering them these tools, this opportunity, these materials, and am I encouraging it and reminding them that this is something that they can do when they're not on the screen? We'll get back to the show in just one minute. But before we do, let me ask you, when was the last time you got to get your work done, to get your housework done, to sip your coffee while it was hot, or even to shower alone when your little kids were home? Listen, if you have kids ages zero to nine, I know just how challenging it can be to get through your to-do list every day or to get a moment of peace and quiet for yourself. That's because I have five kids myself. And through all the years of homeschooling them, of doing my housework, of building my business, of maintaining my sanity, I had to find a strategy that works to keep them entertained and happy in a guilt-free, screen-free way and to allow me the time to actually run our household and life. So what was this big secret I discovered? Well, it's called independent play and it's mother nature's gift to all children. That's right, all kids are designed to play independently. But the trouble is that in our modern-day culture, both our parenting style and our household layout and even the types of toys we buy can sometimes be inadvertently sabotaging kids' natural instinct and urge and desire to play. And that's a shame not only for us because they nag and they're clingy and it's difficult, but also for them because independent play is the way that children learn. Children develop social and emotional skills, physical development, fine and gross motor skills, academic skills, basically everything they need to grow into well-rounded, well-adjusted adults through play. It's fun, it's easy, and it's free, but most of our kids aren't really doing it. They're nagging for a screen or they're vying for adult attention all the time. Why? Well, that's exactly what you'll discover inside my course, Reclaim Play. Reclaim Play breaks down step-by-step exactly the small, easy, manageable changes that you need to make inside your home and in the way that you actually approach your child in order to entice and seduce them back into their natural skills of developing through independent play. When children play independently for hours a day, yes, you heard that right, hours a day, it is such a pleasure and a joy to see them immersed in a state of flow and learning. They enjoy it and we feel guilt-free because they're not glued to a screen. It doesn't cost us money to schedule a babysitter or hire a nanny, and it allows us to get the breathing room we need to show up as the best parents we can be to them. So grab your copy of Reclaim Play, and within three weeks, your child could be playing for hours a day. Find the link in the show notes or somewhere around this video, and now let's get back to the show. The next really viable alternative to screen time that I think we should offer in our family culture is what I might call maybe outdoor adventure, okay? It might be outdoor sports, being part of a sports team. It might be more solo sports, or it could be hiking. It could even be family travel from time to time. Getting out in nature is amazing for kids' mental health, and for all of us, we know this, it's great for their physical health as well. Being part of a sports team helps them to be a team player, to collaborate with others, to feel like they have some sense of identity and meaning as part of something. It helps them to push themselves harder, faster, higher, to get more maybe ambitious with their goals and with what they demand of themselves, to get a little bit more driven. I used to be a little bit skeptical about competitive sports, but I've really come around, and I think that this is something that's actually quite important for kids, especially maybe for boys. Although none of my boys have ever been on an organized competitive sports team, maybe with the exception of a little bit of town soccer, they still have a lot to gain by going out and playing basketball with their friends or playing soccer with their friends, right? A lot of physical skill, but also a lot of collaboration and team effort and friendship that is formed in this way. There's something deeply satisfying and fun for kids in driving themselves further, whether it's when they're swimming or running or whatever it is that they might be doing, right? Baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, I don't know, whatever you have in your home that's available nearby. But the point is that getting out and about, seeing the world, developing a little bit of worldliness, maybe through travel or going to museums or just seeing different sites, connection with nature, connection with others. All of these things, I think, are things that we have to actively craft in our family culture if we want them to be there. Kids could easily spend their entire childhood just glued to a screen at home. And unfortunately, many do in this day and age. Many kids aren't getting out and about, aren't having these experiences, aren't seeing the world, aren't connecting with others, aren't moving their bodies. They're sedentary and they're living through these virtual experiences. Even things like soccer and basketball are happening virtually. They're virtually swimming. They're virtually and digitally playing these video games that simulate the real life experience, but don't offer them the real life experience and really can't compare. And so this is something that takes time and effort and budget from us parents. We have to drive them, we have to sign them up, we have to get the gear, we have to book the things, whatever it is that we have to do. And it's so much easier to just say, forget it, just play the game online. But if you don't want your child glued to a screen and addicted to technology, you've got to offer them a life that's not boring. You've got to offer them something outside the screen that is interesting, that gets them up every day. And I think that kids who have something that they love, like a sport, maybe like a youth movement, maybe getting out and about, they will say no to the screen. I have a couple of kids who really, really love their screen time. They're pretty addicted. They can't say no to a movie. But if there's the opportunity to go on an outing, to go on a picnic, to travel, to play sports with their friends, they're going to say yes to all of that every day of the week before they would say yes to a screen. And so this is about making opportunities available to them that are more compelling and more exciting than just sitting and playing a video game for hours. The next one is meaningful chores around the household. And this is not one that maybe kids would choose to do over a movie, but it's one that you need to choose for them to do over a movie or any other screen entertainment. What do I mean by that? Kids who participate in chores around the household are happier. They develop better. They have a strong sense of being needed, of belonging, of identity, of being part of something. They get out of themselves. They're less narcissistic. They're less me, me, me generation. They're less selfie generation. Why? Because they understand that everybody has to pull their weight around here, that we need your help, that you have something to contribute, and that the whole is larger than each of its parts. That our family as a whole needs all of us to contribute and to help, including you. That you aren't going to sit on your butt and watch TV while mom grinds away in the kitchen or vacuuming or folding laundry. No, no, no, no, no. In this household, you don't get to sit and enjoy passive entertainment with your legs up when you know someone else is working on your behalf, at least not as a regular thing, okay? Like if you're sick, fine, take a day off. But generally, we want to train our children to see what needs to get done around here. Are you kidding me that you think you're gonna sit down and play video games when the kitchen looks like this, when the laundry hasn't been folded, when your room's a mess? This is about teaching them priorities, responsibility, perspective-taking, empathy, and accountability. They need to learn that they are accountable for the state of the household, that they are accountable to helping others. By the way, chores doesn't even have to necessarily mean household chores. It could also mean helping a sibling with a project that they are struggling with. It could mean we need to help our neighbors or something needs to get done for our family. It's basically about thinking about others and thinking about what needs to get done before I think about passively entertaining myself and just having fun on a screen. Screens are about checking out, right? They're about relaxing at the end of a hard day's work. They don't replace the other important things that we need to do in our life, including meaningful chores. I want you to remember this. Kids thrive on contribution. Your kid might whine and drag their feet and mash their teeth at the idea that they now need to wash the dishes when their favorite show is on and they need to go and watch the show. But if you stick to that, if you help them to pull through, then eventually you'll see the fruits of your labor and it will pay off. It will pay off in their ability to delay gratification, to feel grateful for what they've got, to be patient, to work hard and play hard and to see others and be a good contributor. It will pay off in the meaningful relationships they'll be able to build as a result of that demand that you put on them. So yeah, it might feel hard. Like I'm putting this demand on them when really they should just be kids. They should just go play their video games. But the opposite is true. If they just go play their video games for their entire childhood while other people work around them to uphold this very comfy, cushy life that they have, then they never really learn what goes into it. Where's the wizard behind the curtain? What does it take to become an adult? Remember, childhood is not just about have fun until you're 18 and then boom, responsibility hits. No, it's about gradually growing into that responsibility so that when you're 18, you seamlessly transition into adult life. You're like, are you kidding me? Running a household? I've been doing that for years alongside my mom. I can do this right now. I know how to cook a meal. I know how to wash my own clothes. Of course I do because mom always demanded those things of me. She taught me how. She gradually taught me and made me an apprentice of adulthood. That's what childhood is about. Childhood is about apprenticeship of adulthood, not just hedonistic, in-the-moment pleasure. So your child should not get the message that in your family culture, passive entertainment, like screen usage, comes before contributing to the family household. It has to be the opposite. Your child should think like, no way, I wouldn't dare consider sitting down when there's all these things to do. I haven't cleared my plate. I haven't helped clear my sibling's plate. I haven't, you know, tidied my bed. Okay, last and definitely not least Unfortunately, today, we really face an epidemic of isolation. People today are very isolated. They're getting married less. They're dating less. They're having less kids. They're living near their parents less. People are lonely in many parts of the Western world. That is true. And part of that is now being encouraged and kind of seeded in childhood. If in childhood, you get used to being on your own with your device, if you'd rather not go out with your friends because it's less socially awkward, there's less risks that you take by just sitting on your bed and scrolling on Instagram. If you've learned that you can get everything you need through this device, you know, friendship, eventually romance, and even your sexual connections are all gonna be through the screen, then you never develop the skills that are necessary to have real life interaction. And unfortunately, that's where it's at. That's where the mental strength, the mental health, the meaning, the fulfillment, the happiness that we all want for our children is at. It's in their future relationships. It's in those relationships being real, embodied, face-to-face, IRL, in real life, not in virtual reality. Is there a place for friendships that are forged online? Sure. Is there a place for parasocial relationships like the one you and I have right now? Yes, but that cannot replace in-life community. I can tell you that for my children, and I hope this is true for yours too, if they have the opportunity to watch a film by themselves in a room, or for their friends to come over, or for us to go to some kind of community event, or to meet our extended family, they're gonna choose meeting people every single time because as much of a dopamine hit and an addiction the screen might be, there's even more fulfillment, joy, connection, oxytocin, all of the good, feel good, love hormones from connecting with others who are meaningful and who we love. Unfortunately, in today's day and age, this demands extra parental strength. Like, you've gotta really form these. You've gotta look for them. You've gotta sign them up to the youth movement. You've gotta invite friends over after school. You've gotta host community events. You've gotta travel to be with family. You've gotta open your home to guests and host potluck meals. You've got to make it happen because it will not happen naturally in most places in the West today. In most places in the West today, you could easily just send your child to school, and then they come back, and then you're alone for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, including the weekend. Unless you make some special effort to form real relationships where people come over to each other, where they spend time with each other, where your child feels embedded in a larger community, maybe it's your church or your extended family or your neighbors or whatever it might be, it won't happen just naturally. That's something you've actually got to go out and work hard for. And I know that it's hard work. This is one of those things where it's not really about budget. It doesn't have to cost any money to meet people in the park, but it is about internal resources. Do I have the patience, the time, the confidence, the energy? Am I too inhibited or awkward or uncomfortable to actually make this happen? But I've been beating this drum for years and years and years, way back before COVID even hit. I was talking about the epidemic of isolation, and I'm still gonna beat that drum because I think if you want a child who's not addicted to screens their whole childhood, this is the most powerful thing you can offer them, is a peer group, is a sense of belonging to a community, relationships, meaningful, lasting relationships with other people, is going to trump sitting and watching a screen or playing a video game every single time, but only if your child can really feel fulfilled and confident in those relationships. And that takes time and that takes building. So you've got to get building with that one, okay? Go out, sign them up, open the home, create the experiences, connect with others so that they feel that there is something rich and meaningful and inviting outside of the virtual world. All right, so let's sum this whole video up like this. If you offer a vibrant offline world, then their phone can become a little bit more irrelevant. The draw, the dopamine, the addiction, the seduction and temptation of the screen time gets muted. It loses its luster because there's something even more meaningful and fulfilling and satisfying that I could be doing. I could be reading an amazing book. I could be creating. I could be traveling and adventuring and playing outdoor sports with other people. I could be helping meaningfully around the home, which will soothe my conscience and feed my sense of morality and connection with others and contribution. And I could connect with others through community and through friendship. And that is much more alluring than anything the digital device has to offer. So yes, screens are addictive, but if we build an offline, meaningful family culture, then our children are a little bit more immune to it. They can say no, they can put it down because they know there's wonderful other things on the yes side of the equation. I'm here to help you build that yes side of the equation. In fact, inside of the studio, my online membership, that's exactly what we do. We build a strong family culture. We talk about the rituals that we want, about the types of mealtime or the tech breaks to get off the phone. We talk about planning, vacations, birthdays, meaningful rites of passage. We talk about forming community and friendships and teamwork around chores. We do all these things and we actually implement them, not just talk about them. We print the album so that we can look at the album and make meaningful memories together. We reorganize and declutter the home so that it's a really inviting, warm, incredible space to be in. And we don't always need to escape into our phone. We talk about all of that and we implement those projects so that your family culture is so powerful, so exciting, so meaningful, so fulfilling for your children that you can compete with the likes of Netflix and Disney+. If this was helpful for you, I would love to hear your key takeaway below. In our next video, I'm going to be breaking down age by age and stage by stage what kind of boundaries we should be setting. So we'll go back to the no category, how to set those boundaries around screens and what we want to look out for in each stage of childhood development. If that sounds good, make sure that you're subscribed to the notification bell so you never miss an episode. If you're listening to this on the podcast, make sure to share it with someone who might find it interesting. And please leave me a review over on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to this because that really helps me to grow the channel. Meanwhile, keep on living that high-fam life. I so appreciate you being a high-famer and I want you to know that I read every comment, so please keep them coming. See you in the next episode. Bye.