What Happens When You Actually Don't Give Screens to Your Kid
Turns out, the rule was never really about him.
Alhamdulillah, our effort all this while to not easily give screen time to our kid is paying off. He can focus on whatever he likes doing. Focused when reading a book. Calm when playing with his Lego. Most importantly, he can be calm without needing to be handed a show. I don’t know what theory connects a kid’s calmness with their parents’ behavior. But it works!
Disclaimer: I’m not an anti-screen-time parent. I just manage when my kid is allowed screen time and when he’s not.
While a lot of kids are given a screen so they can be calm and the parents get more room to do their own work, we chose to be patient instead, dividing tasks between us to accompany him. Way more effort, of course. It’s obviously easier to just hand over the TV, hand over the phone, put on Upin & Ipin, Boboiboy, or whatever show he likes, so the parents can relax and go back to being “productive.”
“Is there any guarantee that a kid who’s not given screen time will turn out calm and love reading books?”
Honestly, no, there isn’t. We did it back then simply because we felt he didn’t need to face a screen for that long yet.
“But they’re digital natives, born already familiar with gadgets. Why keep them away from it? They’ll end up not tech-savvy.”
Exactly because there are already so many screens everywhere, we as parents have to be even more careful to guard and control. Not everything on a screen is worth their consumption. And consuming screens doesn’t need to take that long for a kid. It ends up being excessive. And isn’t excess never a good thing?
This became its own challenge for me, a father who works from home, works in front of a screen. Sometimes up to 5–8 hours a day. Enforcing a no screen time rule for my kid definitely felt unfair.
Yes, but only if I never explained the reason from the start, why I get to have screen time while he doesn’t.
Try explaining it to them in a language they can easily understand.
Ayah (“dad” in Bahasa) faces the screen because Ayah has to work. From working, Ayah earns money. The money is used to pay for electricity, for food. Not for watching entertainment or playing games.
Does he get it right away? Of course it takes repetition and process. Step by step.
It doesn’t mean once he gets it, we’re free to open our phones in front of him. If anything, that becomes our own alarm. If we want our kid to not constantly glance at screens, we as parents have to be able to do it too. Turns out the hardest challenge isn’t the kid. It’s ourselves.
Bringing a Book Everywhere
A hassle. One more thing to stuff into the bag. But this can be a good escape to chase away boredom. Instead of pulling out the phone and ending up doomscrolling, might as well just grab a book. Pick a book you like. Doesn’t have to be a big one. Just bring one that’s small enough to fit in your bag, or easy enough to carry around. Or bring a digital reader like Kindle, Boox, etc. But it’s definitely cooler when your kid sees you reading an actual book instead of an e-book. It just looks like you swapped one gadget for another. Same shape as a phone.
Honestly, reading a book does make me sleepy faster than scrolling on the phone, hahaha. But it’s more useful than aimless scrolling.
Bringing a Notebook Everywhere
Another hassle. One more thing to carry. But this helps you not get sleepy so easily while reading. Write down what you read. Read 1 page, write. Or read 1 chapter, write. Or whenever you hit an interesting paragraph, pause, then write. Could be a quote, an insight summary, could even be practice for writing. A skill I think is important to have no matter what. Doesn’t always have to be about what you’re reading. Could also be for jotting down a sudden idea, running journaling, whatever’s in your head, just dump it into the notebook. Drawing works too. Free scribbling works too. The point is, this notebook becomes an escape instead of reaching for the phone every so often.
Don’t let what we’re trying to build as a good habit for our kid get broken by ourselves, because the kid sees the inconsistency between what we enforce on him and what we actually do.
So, for parents who are struggling to enforce no screen time for their kid under not-so-ideal conditions, with a lot of challenges, hang in there. You’re not alone. Good intentions balanced with the right prayers and effort, insya Allah, God will give the best answer. :)