At Your Wits’ End With A Screen-Obsessed Kid? Read This (Anya Kamenetz and Chloee Weiner)
This article is based on a podcast episode that appeared in National Public Radio’s Life Kit. It was published June 30, 2019. Anya Kamenetz and Chloee Weiner are NPR journalists.
Geoff and Ellie live in a suburban Chicago neighborhood that looks familiar from movies like Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — both filmed in the area.
They have three kids — Nathan, 5, Benji, 11, and Abby, 14 — and they’re worried that all three are too into their screens.
An all-too-common experience
Ninety-eight percent of families with children now have smartphones. Young children Nathan’s age consume over two hours of media per day on average, tweens take in about six hours, and teens use their devices for nine hours a day, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media.
Technology overuse ranked as the No. 1 fear of parents of teenagers in a national survey last year.
As we sit in the family room, Ellie tell us how it feels to have a houseful of tiny electronic devices that travel with her kids into their bedrooms, to the table, in the car — everywhere.
“We’re the first generation of parents that has to do this monitoring,” Ellie says.
Case in point: Nathan, her 5-year-old, is tugging at her sleeve:
“Mommy, Mommy. MOMMY, CAN I PLAY ON YOUR IPAD? CAN I NOW?! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!”
The problem with time-based rules
How did Geoff and Ellie get here? They are not hands-off parents, nor are they CONTINUE READING: At Your Wits’ End With A Screen-Obsessed Kid? Read This (Anya Kamenetz and Chloee Weiner) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice