We try to limit screen time in our house. Which is tricky, because the school wants the kids on iPads for Phonics Hero and Matific.
And we've gotten off lightly. Some of our friends' kids are at schools where an iPad is on the supplies list, sitting right there between the glue sticks and the coloured pencils.
So it's "no screens" on Monday, then "mate, you need to be doing Phonics Hero on the iPad or you'll fall behind" on Tuesday. My 7 year old thinks I've lost the plot. He's got a point.
Screens aren't new though
Here's the thing I keep coming back to. I watched Agro's Cartoon Connection and Cheez TV every single morning before school. If the weather was rubbish I'd be on the PlayStation half the day.
Nobody was writing worried articles about me.
And on a sunny day I wanted to surf, play footy, get on my skateboard. The telly didn't stand a chance.
My kids are exactly the same. Good day, they're outside. I don't have to make them go.
So what's actually different
Cheez TV finished at nine o'clock. That was it. The cartoons ran out and you went and found something else to do.
That's the bit that's changed. Nothing runs out now.
The apps my kids will eventually get their hands on aren't designed to finish. They're designed to keep going, and there are very clever people paid very good money to make sure they do. That's not the same as a morning cartoon. It's not the same as the PlayStation on a rainy Saturday.
So it's not screens I'm worried about. It's the stuff built specifically to be hard for a kid to put down.
Even the blokes who built them are careful
Steve Jobs didn't let his own kids use the iPad. A journalist asked him in 2010 whether they loved it and he said "they haven't used it, we limit how much technology our kids use at home". Bill Gates didn't hand his kids phones until they were 14.
The people who built this stuff won't let their own kids near it. Make of that what you will.
The uncomfortable bit
It's not really about the kids though, is it.
We're at a cafe, we want ten minutes to finish a conversation, so we hand over a phone. I've done it.
It's the easiest thing in the world and it works every single time. Which is exactly the problem.
What we actually do
The kids watch telly in the morning so I can get a run or a workout in. That's a screen buying me time so I can prioritise myself for a bit.
We play the Switch together as a family on weekends and I love it. Competitive when we're racing on Mario Kart, all working together in Mario Wonder.
And some nights we all snuggle up in bed and watch Lego Masters together. It gives me a bit of nostalgia for watching Hey Hey It's Saturday when I was a kid, the whole family in front of the telly.
The one rule we do hold to is the iPad. Thirty minutes before school for Phonics Hero or Matific, and that's it.
Every household is different though, so whatever works for yours.
The screen wins because it's easy
That's the real problem. The screen usually wins, because it's so easy.
So you need something that can beat it on ease. Lego, card games, stuff you can set up in minutes and all do together that's genuinely enjoyable. As soon as something lands in the too hard basket you won't bother setting it up, and you'll hear "I'm bored" the whole afternoon.
That easy win is exactly what the game my kids and I made was for.
