📱How to keep a playdate from turning into screen time
My cousin tells a playdate story of driving a car full of excited 6-year-olds to the park. During the drive, she passed them some orange slices, causing one of the little girls to shout with surprise, “This is so yummy!” she squealed. “Can you pass me back the wrapper so I can tell my mom to get this?”
This 2nd grader had never tasted a sliced piece of citrus.
As hard as it can be to imagine, some of our kids are similarly inexperienced with basic free play.
These children have emerged from the pandemic adept at screens but clueless about social and emotional skills. As a quarantine survival mechanism, we let our children have way more access to personal devices than we normally would if thousands of people weren’t dying across the world each day. These were desperate times.
But what about screens in these present times? How do we walk it back a little if we want to? One place to begin is to choose to remove screens during playdates.
Mothers across the globe are hungry for more permission from other mothers to start setting these important boundaries.
If you need help finding the words, try this script for setting boundaries with another parent before a play date:
“I’m so excited our kids are becoming friends! I have a request…I’m hoping that their playdate can be screen-free: like phones away, iPads are up and out of reach, and they spend the next 90 minutes they have together just playing like kids. Making up silly games, getting in fights or whatever they do. Please don't feel like you have to entertain them. I’m totally fine if they are bored together, but I just don’t want them to resort to video games (or Youtube or whatever your child’s favorite thing is) or worse internet search modes. My kid has missed out on so much real learning regarding friendship, but also because unless someone is going to be closely supervising them, I don’t want them alone on the internet or social media. Is that something you can agree to? I’ll do the same for you when they come to my house.”
Or, keep it simple! An Instagram follower shared that another parent texted her this:
We just would please ask for no screens on play dates. We’ve had some bad experiences so I always mention it upfront now.”
Your homework this week is to initiate a screen-free play date. Let them invent games, build Legos, bake muffins, or just be bored for an hour!
In next week’s newsletter, I am going to give you scripts to use with your elementary school child who is feeling the social pressure to have a smartphone when you, the adult, are not ready.
I’m proud of you!
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In Case You Missed It
Last week on the 'Gram, we heard from teachers on the effects of screen use in their classrooms:
