Even if she may not admit it yet, limiting Lyndsay’s screen time has opened her eyes up to more beauty in life beyond her phone.
Courtesy of Sarah Shrader
I didn’t expect to have teenagers this soon – so I am going to blame my unpreparedness on that. Although I truly do not think that one can ever fully be prepared for the teenage years (or even the late preteen years leading up to it). Regardless, God thankfully blessed me with my bonus girl who gets to be the guinea pig for all things teenage related for our girls.
Like I said, I wasn’t prepared for any of this teenage stuff – I am literally just fumbling through it as we go. Together, Lee and I make decisions for all our babies, pray on those decisions and then regroup and evaluate to see if we think we are doing the right thing. Truly we don’t know what we are doing, we just hope we aren’t screwing up too much.
Recently, we started really paying attention to screen time – for all the kids, but especially for Lyndsay. I know, I know – before you jump all over me – we should have been paying attention to screen time long before now (a few weeks before her 13th birthday). But, well, I refer to my earlier comments – I just wasn’t ready for all of this and I wasn’t prepared.
And screen time – it is a touchy topic. Never will we all agree on what is right or wrong – and that’s okay. I think at the end of the day, each parent needs to do what is best for his or her kid. Maybe that means no restrictions, maybe that means no phone at all. And maybe that means somewhere in between – which is where we landed.
And guys, if you have never set restrictions on screen time with your children and you plan to eventually, just do it now! Rip that Band-Aid off and get it done at a young age. Because I would have sworn last week that I was taking away this child’s ability to breathe. It was seriously that bad.
I would like to say that I knew it would be bad and was ready for it. But I wasn’t. Not for the desperation in her voice or behind her tears as she begged for it. And certainly not for the pain of hearing, from her, just how terrible we were. She despised us. We were, clearly, ruining her life.
Look, I know we are not here to be their friends – we are here to guide them, protect them, teach them, keep them safe and show them how to make it in this world. And sometimes, that very much does NOT look like being their friend. Sometimes, it looks like taking something that they love physically out of their reach and watching them suffer through the loss of it while knowing that it is ultimately what is best for them.
But I am not going to lie. It is awful! Like, the worst! I love this little girl! The last thing I want to do is cause her pain – she has been through enough in her young life. But, that’s just it – her young life was being swallowed up behind a screen of fake and fiction. Her worth dependent on likes, snaps and wall pics (because literally, that is what these kids send each other nonstop these days). She was so sucked in to social media that she was missing the real life around her.
So, we set boundaries – limits. Ones that we are still tweaking and caressing as we go. Remember, we still don’t actually know what we are doing, but we knew we had to start somewhere. (Maylie and Reagan got limits too – because, well, I am not waiting until they need them).
We are only a week in – and it started off very shaky. But, even after a couple of days, we watched our Lynds come back. Heck, just a few days after, with nothing to tie her to her phone in the morning before school, she was joking and hanging with us for almost an hour before she got on the bus. It was so refreshing and really relieving – both in seeing that her disdain for us didn’t last too long and, most importantly, it felt like we got our girl back.
It’s been a process, but she is learning how to manage her time — setting her priorities and getting them done first so she can have her screen time. Maybe it is just motivation for her – but I’d like to think that, even if she may not admit it yet, it has opened her eyes up to more beauty in life beyond her phone.
And while I am sure we have many, many, many more lessons to learn about raising teenagers, I can already tell from the improvements in the last week, that setting screen time, as well as the positive effects of it on our girl, is here to stay.
Sarah (Pitson) Shrader was born and raised in Lima. She is a Lima Central Catholic and Tiffin University graduate. Sarah is a full-time working mama who enjoys writing about her somewhat crazy, always adventurous life as a mother. She lives in Bath Township with her daughters and writing inspirations, Maylie and Reagan.
