How to Slay The Technology Dragon For Your Kids

It didn’t occur to me that I had a dragon living in my house this year. He wasn’t loud or fire-breathing, and in fact, he was invisible.  It wasn’t until I was dazed at the end of a long Saturday of blogging, getting posts ready, and trying to shuttle my son around to different birthdays and events that I saw him for the first time. It wasn’t until I realized that my son had been watching or playing with something that required electricity for over seven hours!

No, my dragon isn’t real (or imagined), but it’s a visual way I see technology in my family.  The technology dragon in our house didn’t happen overnight. It started with my first technology purchase- my iPad.  I was so excited when my blog had finally started earning money instead of costing me money, and my first expense write-off was my brand new Apple iPad and iPhone. I LOVED the convenience these tech pieces brought me with their synced calendars, money saving apps, and much more. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, right?  I was also so excited that I could open this door for our son to be able to experience educational apps, websites, and more at the touch of a finger.

It didn’t take long before my son was downloading game after game on my phone that I decided to get my son his own iPod for his 8th birthday. The main reason was so that he would quit asking to play games on my phone.  This was my biggest technology mistake to date. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he quickly became obsessed with the games on the ipod, and my husband started playing Minecraft with him on the Xbox a few months later. Between Minecraft on the Xbox and the iPod (among other games), I was quickly losing count of the minutes that my son was “plugged in.”

For the last few months I could sense that while it was probably unhealthy, I didn’t feel it was permanent, because I”m expecting our first child by birth (our son is adopted from Guatemala). Pregnancy at my age has been more difficult at times than I expected, and there were times I needed a babysitter to get through working full-time, blogging, and all the other activities in which our family was involved.  However, about two months ago things in our family really started to change.

The throws of pregnancy combined with life have forced our family to slow down.  Even though I decided early on in the pregnancy that fall soccer was our last sport/weekly commitment, I still didn’t see the technology dragon in the room.  I had noticed that there were arguments when he was told to turn off a piece of technology, and I saw my husband wasn’t always helping with this at times, especially when they were playing the Xbox together. This was an exceptionally long northeast winter as well, which made our “hibernating” much worse than other years. Perhaps they were trying to escape my pregnancy hormones as well!

No matter what the reason, my son’s attitude of disrespect toward both of us, and his grandparents are what truly caused me to put on my cape and grab my sword (Proverbially, of course) and head in to slay this dragon that was attacking my family. I had noticed other subtle issues coming from the technology. People would come to visit, or grandparents would enter a room and our son would not acknowledge them. He didn’t say hi, and didn’t even look away from his device. I would call him out on this, but didn’t realize that his generally shy disposition was more than just that, it showed he didn’t have the social skills he needed, and as a teacher, I was mortified that I hadn’t seen this sooner.

I also know that our son is going through a major time of transition right now. He’s going to be a sibling for the first time, and his best friend is going to be changing schools next year. These two things have been very hard on him right now, and while I’m trying to be extra sensitive to his needs, I’ve still decided that technology will be limited for him in our house. Here are the changes I’ve made so far, and how they are working for us as a family.

1. All technology has been taken away or extremely limited.

Yes, we did it cold turkey. The final straw was a few weeks ago when my mom took us to the indoor pool where she works (desperately needed for this pregnant lady), and our son and his cousin were fighting about something. Our son is not one to be disrespectful, and he decided to refuse to give a pair of swimming goggles to his cousin, then proceeded to throw them into the hot tub area. My husband almost had to get into the pool (fully clothed, since he had not come to swim), and get him out of the pool.  The punishment was to take the technology away.

I’m so blessed to have a co-worker who has a son a few years older, and they are in the same boat with technology, so she and I have had many, many conversations about these issues over the past few years. I told her about this issue the next day, and decided at that exact moment he wouldn’t be getting them back in the same way he had before. He had always been able to “earn” items back when he was in trouble, but not this time.

The only technology we have allowed still is television, and that is limited to fifteen minutes before school while he’s eating breakfast and in the evenings when he watches with my husband and I as a family.  I’m still amazed by the fact that television alone is still accounting for about an hour and fifteen minutes each day. Even with no other technology being involved, my husband and I still watch about an hour in the evenings. Of course, as you’re reading this, please don’t think I’m unaware that my husband and I clearly are working towards reducing our technology addictions as well! It has certainly been an eye-opener for me as well.

2. We plan family time. Our new expression is “Wonderful Wednesday” and “Fabulous Friday” because these are the nights we have designated as game nights. While we’ve always managed to keep mealtime free of technology (most of the time), we had really gotten away from playing games as a family. So much so that my son was completely disrespectful with a ton of attitude during our first round of Yahtzee the first night, to the point we had to stop playing the game!

I’ve also had to revamp my schedule and pare down even farther on blogging, vlogging, and other extracurricular activities that were consuming too much family time.  This sort of came naturally for my blog, especially once Facebook completely changed the rules and none of my visitors could see my posts anymore! So, with the crickets chirping, I took almost the whole months of January and February off to prepare for this baby and spend more time as a family.

Our time spent as a family is more intentional. Instead of just flipping through the channels, we now have to decide what activity we want to do, and some of this has even included cleaning as a family! We’ve had many talks about how our family needs to work as a team.

3.  Team Spirit! This has been a main conversation topic since the tech removal.  We decided our son was old enough now for regular chores, and we’ve been working heavily to help him learn how to help us around the house in a developmentally appropriate manner. This means that we help him learn how to do chores that are realistic. He’s obviously still too young for chores like mowing, or even wiping some of the mirrors down in the bathrooms (because he can’t reach them)!  We’ve been explaining over and over that as a family, we need to work as a team.

The first chore day was quite emotional for our son, as he met us with protests and even crying. We explained to him that if he could take on a few of these tasks without crying or whining, that he might actually earn an allowance!  We saw a huge difference between weeks one and two in his approach to the chores. By this week he didn’t want any help, managed to complete all the tasks, and still forgot to ask me for his allowance in the end!

 4. Time on technology can be earned by doing chores, reading, and helping in other areas.

Surprisingly, he has not taken me up on this offer yet.  Just last night our son came home with a stomach bug, and today he just didn’t seem like himself. He asked and whined for about twenty minutes about watching television since he didn’t feel good. I offered to read with him and he didn’t like that offer much better. However, when I offered to read Charlotte’s Web to him, he immediately ran for the book.  I was pleasantly surprised, even though he did fall asleep for about ninety minutes after I started reading!

I have to say he hasn’t taken me up on the offer of earning technology time. Instead, I find him doing other things. For example, his father is trimming outside, and he has been out with him ever since waking up from his nap, playing with the dogs. I’m sure as time progresses, he will start learning that he can earn technology by being helpful or completing these other tasks.

(By the way, my son just came in and asked why I had all the technology on the table, and I told him I was writing a blog post about it, and he says, “You mean about too much technology for kids?” See, they are very aware, even more than we realize.)

5. Replace boredom with physical activity.  Focus on the physical activities that your child enjoys. This may even mean throwing the ball or playing soccer outside versus playing on an organized team. Just get outside as much as you can, or even join the local YMCA if it’s winter. Our local YMCA has some great programs for kids, and we also have an indoor amusement park with tubes, ball pits, etc.

In Conclusion…

While I will be doing an ongoing series on this topic, posting updates on a weekly to bi-weekly basis (until baby comes, then give me about a month), please know that I feel really compelled to share a few tips, tricks, and pieces of advice.

-You are in control. Yes, you, the parent, are in control. I know it doesn’t feel that way when you first take it away, because the reaction is probably not going to be good. For our family it was about two days of pure h#$*.  However, once we made it through, I had no regrets, because I knew I was doing the right thing.  Even though I may have not done it perfectly, I still made a step in the right direction for my child.

-Don’t back down. Don’t give in, don’t back down, and don’t quit. The temptation was very high those first two days. However, once the transition had been made and he realized we weren’t going back, I found it much easier to reason with him about why we were making these choices.  He needed to understand that it was what was best for him and for our entire family.

-Replace the technology time with family time as much as possible- immediately.  Just as a fish out of water needs to get back to water as soon as possible, your family needs to reconnect as soon as possible. While this may feel awkward, and you may not even know what to talk about, just start talking.  Ask about school, ask about their friends, their teachers, the activities in which they are involved. This can be especially tough for parents who are quiet themselves.

-Be held accountable.  This is for every family, because we all tend to slip into old habits naturally.  Having an accountability person/couple is necessary to make sure you keep moving forward with this commitment. I’ve asked a dear friend of the family to really hold me accountable in this area, and to make sure that my husband and I stay committed, and she is going to check in on us on a monthly basis for about a year.  This will help us get more than a good start and help us keep focused in the upcoming year.

Remember, even as a teacher with a Masters Degree, I still lost sight of what was best for my child. It can happen to anyone, and the main issue is whether or not you slay the dragon, or let him steal any more of your time or your child’s time!