Our Summer Screentime Contract
Summer break is just about upon us—many districts around the country are already out, some will be in a week or two, and we finish this Friday. One thing that has come up over and over again, both in our own home as well as in conversations with friends both in person and online, is how to manage our time throughout the summer. Of course we all want lazy days with no structure and agenda, but I think most of us have experienced the reality that too many of those days and it starts to feel like no one is functioning at their best—eventually we all need a little structure or framework around our days, and we know our kids function best when they have something expected of them as well. The number one thing that repeatedly comes up in my conversations—especially with other moms of middle schoolers—is how to best put some parameters around electronic usage in the summer months when we have so much extra free time.
As our boys have gotten older (they’re 9 and 12 now) we’ve found this to be more challenging. Playing Fortnite online with friends is a huge way middle school boys connect with and socialize with one another. While part of me would love to say “too bad, we don’t want you playing video games” I also realize that this probably isn’t the best long term solution for a variety of reasons. Kids are going to have access to technology for the rest of their lives. My job while they are in my home isn’t to forbid access to everything that feels new to me, but rather to help them develop a healthy relationship with some of these things before they leave our nest. There are WAY too many college students we know and have heard of who absolutely fail their first year of university because they hadn’t ever learned to develop a healthy relationship with screens while at home, so when they moved away to full freedom they couldn’t self-regulate or manage their time and flunked all their classes. That’s not exactly the path we hope to walk down someday….
We also have heard from Aidan that his closest relationships are actually with the boys from his life group at church, not his friends from school, and his life group friends all go to different schools, but they all play Fortnite, so when he can get on line with them it’s a way of having time with these boys (who we want to foster great relationships with) when we can’t get them together in person. To remove that social outlet for him (we tried) actually was worse for his mental health than allowing him time to connect with them online a little each day. He lights up when he finds Wyatt, Jericho, Altom or Ty online in the afternoon and I love that he’s spending time laughing with boys we know and love.
That being said, on these long hot days, he doesn’t have those self-regulation skills yet, and he’d be online way too long. Of course he would, he’s 12. No 12 year old has a great sense of how to structure their days and self-police tech usage. So as we’ve gotten closer to summer break we’ve had more conversations around this and talking about how we want them to have time to play whatever tech games they’re into in the moment, but also for what else we’d like to see them prioritize with their time this summer. We have lots of camps scheduled throughout the next couple months so they will have half days filled with something structured but that still leaves plenty of free time to manage. We talked about what was important to everyone and then I wrote up a contract that we’ve all signed. As I’ve learned more about mental health, kids, and boundaries I keep coming across the Brene Brown concept of “Clear is Kind.” Part of our conflict or disciple issues surrounding tech in our home has all stemmed from me not having super clear expectations in place for them to follow. That’s not kind of me, and it’s not kind to then discipline them for something I haven’t been clear about in the first place. We wanted to take that aspect off the table this summer and have a VERY clear set of parameters in place.
I offhandedly mentioned this idea of a screen time contract to two separate friends and both of them had the same reaction “oh my gosh we need something like that, can you please send me what you wrote??!” So I thought I’d share it here in case anyone else feels like they’re not sure how to navigate the grand amount of free time that we are about to experience. Of course this won’t work for every family or every personality of mom. So if you have something similar in place, awesome! And if you don’t, you are an incredible mom who is making the right decisions for your own family, so please don’t let this be some “oh she’s got this all together” comparison thing because believe me, this contract came together after MANY family meltdowns over the past 6 months around technology! We do not have it all together over here but we are trying our best to navigate all these complex things in a world none of us parents had to grow up in!
So, without further rambling, here is our screen time contract for the summer. For the section where they have certain tasks to complete, I have a simple chart made up for them with post it notes—one note for each task that they can move from the “to do” to “done” column. Yes, this is long. Yes I am tired of arguing with them about this, so I’ve tried to cover everything, but also give them a WHY behind some of these rules!
Kennedy Family Summer Screen Time Contract
In the morning:
You may watch a TV show from whenever you get up until 7:30 AM.
You may NOT play video games of any kind in the morning.
You may NOT watch You Tube.
If you’d like to watch 2 different shows, one may watch on the iPad and one may use the TV.
This is freely earned time–mom would like to start her day with quiet, coffee, and no refereeing, so until 7:30 you automatically get to watch a show.
Screens go off at 7:30 and we move into the rest of our day.
Afternoon:
Unless we have something specific scheduled, screen time in our house will be from 2-4 PM. All screens go off at 4 and we move into our afternoon activities (karate, piano, helping cook dinner) (If we have something scheduled we will talk together about an alternate time).
Aidan, just because you do not have an afternoon activity does not mean you get to keep using screens when Asher goes to his. You can come help with his karate class or find something else to do. All screens go off at 4.
You may play video games, watch a show, play Minecraft, whatever you want as long as there is no fighting.
Before you turn on a device at 2, there are 8 things you must have done in the past 24 hours. Every day at 2:00 your list resets. So if you have a camp every morning from 9-12 some of these items will need to be done the afternoon before—managing your time will be your responsibility!
Each of these items is worth 15 minutes of screen time, so if you fail to do 2 of them, your screen time would not start until 2:30 and you would only get an hour and a half. You will have a sticky note with each item written on it and you will move it to the “done” column of your chart that I will create for you when you’ve completed the task.
These items are chosen to help you build healthy habits for your WHOLE body. They aren’t punishments, they are to be enjoyed as much as possible as you learn to care for you as a WHOLE being and learn new skills that will follow you into adulthood! They are:
1. Do something good for your mind–you must read for 30 minutes every day, a new book you have not read before. We know the best leaders in the world are constant readers. Become a reader this summer. (You may earn 1 hour of You Tube time–to be cashed in during regularly scheduled screen time–for each book you finish this summer, this is the only way to get access to YouTube).
2. Do something good for your body–You must move your body for 30 minutes. We know healthy people develop the practice of moving their bodies every day. On the days you have either basketball camp OR karate class this requirement can be met by those activities. On the rest of the days, start with your basic black belt exercises and add one more rep each week. Then find a way that is FUN to move for the other 20 minutes–exercise doesn’t always have to always be just counting reps of something to count as worthwhile. Do a 20 minute yoga video and stretch, ask mom to take you to the pool and swim laps for 20 minutes, do a dancing aerobic video for 20 minutes on YouTube (yes you can use You Tube for exercise videos). Ask mom to take you to Altitude and jump on the trampolines for an hour. (no we cannot do this every day!) Find a way to move that is FUN for you!
3. Do something for your heart–Read one chapter of the bible. We know the most spiritually mature people are those who spend time in God’s word. Develop the habit this summer of being someone who loves God’s story. Ask mom for help finding a story to read, or Asher may start with the Action bible.
4. Do something to serve your family–Each of you will have one chore you will do every day that you will master this summer. We know the most successful people learn how to do work with excellence. Aidan you will be on dishwasher unloading duty every morning and you will load the dishwasher after dinner every night. Asher you will become a master at sweeping this summer and daily will sweep under the kitchen table and help clear the table every night. We will help you learn to do these jobs with excellence.
5. Do something to improve on a skill–Asher will practice his piano for 20 minutes a day and Aidan will practice typing 10 minutes a day (typing CORRECTLY) & do a dribble up for 10 minutes a day. We know putting time into the things we love & need to learn makes us proud and joyful of our accomplishments. Use the summer to improve on these skills!
6. Do something to contribute to our family’s goal of reassembling lego sets–Each day spend at least 20 minutes working through a set. Ask for help finding pieces, but commit the time and attention to making progress on this goal. We know we all experience a sense of accomplishment when we take the time to work together toward a goal.
7. Do a random chore mom asks you to do–Every afternoon mom will have one more thing for you to do–it might be folding your laundry on laundry day, vacuuming the living room, tidying the shoes in the garage, whatever needs to be done around the house, each of you will do one more task to be assigned on that day. We know successful people learn to take responsibility for the messes they create and take pride in the space they live in.
8. Take turns helping with dinner–Each day one of you will take turns being my helper in the kitchen. (Aidan MWF, Asher TTh,Sa) When it’s not your day you get a free pass, but if it is your day you will be in there with me until I’ve told you we’re done. We know successful people learn life skills that help them care for themselves someday. This summer you will learn how to select a recipe, figure out ingredients needed, prepare and clean up a meal.
Evening:Evenings are for swimming, family games, and the occasional movie but we won’t be turning on the TV every night.
Exceptions:
There are a few exceptions to this schedule. The week of Kids Kamp we will be home by 2 and exhausted. Everyone gets screens from 2-4. Mom is NOT going to police a to-do list after serving with 500+ kids every morning. Once we’ve recharged we can work on completing the items we can in the late afternoon but this is a week I don’t expect everything to be done perfectly. It’s just too much. I do expect the 2-4 pm rule to be followed with no whining though.
The week of June 17 Asher has a code ninja camp every afternoon. This will be your screen time for this week since it is a technology based camp.
The ONLY screen coming to Alaska with you is your kindle fire tablet and a pair of headphones. You will NOT bring the switch or the iPad and you will only use your tablet on this trip when you have specific permission from me. No one is paying this much money for you to miss the bear or orca out the window because you were watching a show. Any arguing and the tablet will be placed back in the suitcase for the remainder of the trip.
Will this work? Who the heck knows. But the kids read all of it and said “yeah this seems fair actually, we can do this.” So we’re going to try. I’ll report back. But if you’ve found anything that works to manage screens in your home I’d love to keep learning from others what works! (besides the “we just don’t use them…”. that’s awesome, but that’s not the choice we’ve made!). Happy start of summer everyone, may it be filled with pool parties, lots of great books, popcicles, and some sweet relaxing time yes, on devices and screens.
