Learning to moderate your own screentime

My son loses screentime when he breaks one of our family rules. This is a consequence that he is aware of - if you were to ask him about it now, he would recite it. But it doesn't make the punishment any easier to accept; he hates losing his screentime.

On the days when my son doesn't have screentime, I have to remind him of all the things that he has in his life that don't involve a screen. Invariably, there will be some sort of fort structure that I have to navigate around to tuck him in at night, but he is happy to have built it.

Since he is still young, I am trying to teach him the lesson that there is more to life than what's on a screen. My goal is that he understands this over time (and despite the claims of his friends that they play video games all weekend), so that we can move onto the next lesson:

Self regulation.

I'm not sure how we are going to tackle that yet, but I imagine we are going to have to go through a lot more rules and set up new structures when he enters his teen years and has his own devices. Because those devices will allow him to do a lot of things - including online socializing. 

The latest studies around teens socializing online shows that there is a sweet spot for online happiness that falls around 1 to 5 hours a week. Most of those teens that are spending more than 20 hours a week keeping up with their friends on their accounts are actually miserable. To me, five hours doesn't seem like a lot, and every child is different, but it is crucial to ensure that teens have the ability to self-regulate their use before they leave the house.

Then again, I know some adults who still don't have the ability to self regulate their time spent socializing online. I have also found that these are the same adults who are always saying that the weekend "flew by" and that they didn't have time to get anything done.

Maybe we all need a few refresher courses in how to regulate our screentime better.

How many hours a day do you think your teen spends socializing online? Share your guess in the comments.