4 Times We Break the ‘No Screen Time’ Rule With Our Kids

There are few more well-meaning, yet delusional, people than expectant parents who swear to give their children zero screen time. I know, because I was (and sometimes still am) that parent. It’s easy to get sucked into an idealistic fantasy of what it’s like to raise children when you’re lying on the couch, stroking your pregnant belly and thinking about your perfect little angel baby about to make his or her entrance. But persevering while carrying your screaming toddler in a football pose through a crowded restaurant while you longingly look back at your half-eaten dinner requires a whole other level of dedication.

As confused as I was about kids and screen time, I wasn’t entirely to blame. There’s serious parent shaming on both sides of the debate, and a lot of conflicting information about the “right” approach. When our first son was born, the The American Academy of Pediatrics would postpone all screen time (TV, tablets or phones) until the child is 2 years old. Since then, the age has been lowered to 18 months in its latest guidelinesas long as the screen time is “high quality content” and an adult is “standing by to watch,” which kind of defeats the purpose. What constitutes high quality content anyway?

The World Health Organization isn’t much clearer, suggesting that children under 2 should avoid screens altogether and have “as little screen time as possible” until they’re 5, which again is highly subjective. What’s “possible” for one family may be completely different to another. Parents are then left to interpret all the gray areas and navigate screen time as it suits their individual circumstances, which is exactly what we did.

Seven years, three kids, and one pandemic into this whole parenting journey, we’re a lot less naive (and extreme) about screen time. We still lean toward the stricter side when it comes to setting boundaries, but we’ve built in some wiggle room as our family grows.

Here are four cases where we make an exception.

Connecting with grandparents abroad

My parents live in El Salvador and while they visit fairly regularly, video calls are a lifeline for our family to stay connected with our kids. Even our 1-year-old, who is still not allowed screen time, can talk to her grandma on WhatsApp for as long as she can hold her attention.

For our two oldest (7 and 4) we use Kinzoo’s Togethera family video calling app that lets you read books, play games, or do activities with the other person while you’re on the phone. The $7 monthly subscription gives you unlimited talk time and access to the full library of content.

This is the only app they are free to use when the grandparents are available (and as long as the grandparents tolerate losing yet another game of Battleship to a 4 year old). The only caveat is that the success of the session is highly dependent on the tech savvy of the grandparent, and it sometimes causes more frustration than connection in our household when someone forgets to update the app.

Property of Mattel Caribou is another app with a similar concept that we used a lot when the kids were younger. The $10 monthly subscription includes content from Sesame Street, Thomas the Train, Hot Wheels, and Barbie.

A free pass on flights

Everyone talks about crying babies on planes, but traveling with toddlers is the real nightmare. No amount of training can prepare you for the energy and patience it takes to entertain two very active boys on a crowded plane for 5 hours, while also dealing with your own fear of flying.

They ate my entire bag of activities and snacks in the first hour, and I spent the rest of the flight desperately trying to keep them from crawling on other passengers or running down the aisle. Once my kids were old enough to sit through a movie, my travel experience changed completely. For a brief moment, I got a taste of what it was like to travel in complete silence again: just me staring at my kids staring at a screen the entire flight. No regrets.

I now have a 1 year old who won’t sit still, but at least I’m only talking about one child this time instead of two. As a rule of thumb, I always bring a set of audio splitters so they can both listen to our one iPad at the same time, and double-check that I can watch the content on airplane mode. for I leave the house. I learned the hard way that just because the movie looks like it’s downloaded, doesn’t mean it’s ready to play outside of your wifi network.

Road trips don’t fall under this exception, because our tolerance for complaining is exponentially higher when we don’t have to worry about other passengers.

Relaxation of the rules during the weekend

When our middle son turned 3, we started relaxing the rules on the weekends as well. He and his older brother are allowed to watch about 2 hours of TV, or one movie per day.

The idea is for this to be a shared experience, with at least one parent watching. However, if we have had a particularly miserable night of being up with their little sister, we reserve the right to use the allotted 2 hours to take a nap in the middle of the day.

Our streaming app of choice right now is Disney Plusmostly because of Bluey, but also because they’re finally old enough to watch a lot of the classics I loved as a kid. As an aside, Disney movies hit differently as adults; what’s the deal with them killing off the parents in all their movies?

Before Disney, our favorite streaming service was PBS Kidswith great content for younger kids, including some of our favorites like Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger and Wild Kratz.

Cutting hair

In case you haven’t noticed from the bowl cuts in the photo, I cut my kids’ hair myself. It’s a little tradition we’ve kept up since COVID-19 that makes for great yearbook photos (or bribe material) when they’re older. I’m still torn about whether my daughter will get the matching bowl cut when it’s time to cut her hair too. After four years of doing this, you’d think I’d be better and faster at cutting their hair, but it still takes me about an hour per child. They have a LOT of hair and I’m afraid to use clippers.

The only way I can get them to sit still for so long while chopping their hair off is with a screen in front of them. This is the only time they have free reign of the iPad without having to share it with their brother, so they end up playing with the Marvel Lego App or look at the National Geographic Kids Channel on YouTube.

My biggest lesson about setting screen time rules is that they need to be adaptable. This year, I’ve had to add school-related screen time to the mix, as my sophomore now has a Chromebook that he uses in class for math and reading programs. He’s gotten hooked on one of the math games and is asking to keep playing it at home. Whether this type of screen time will become one of our exceptions remains to be seen.

Rather than try to navigate another gray area on my own, I decided to involve him in the decision-making process. At 7, he’s getting old enough to understand that screen time, while fun, can be hard to stop and that too much screen time can distract him from other things he enjoys. He may be getting more screen time than I expected, but he may also be learning a little about setting his own boundaries, something his tech-loving mother still struggles with.