Page 202 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

Chapter 7 • Household Guidelines

Without household guidelines solution:

You can either let them continue on the binge and suffer the guilt of letting
them do it, or you can make them stop. Making them stop involves the poten-
tial of a meltdown and also a fight or argument, as they don’t understand why
you are doing this to them.

With household guidelines solution:
Knowing that screen time can be an issue, you and your child create a rule
where every 30 minutes they have to take a 5-minute break. They are also not
to go over 2 hours of viewing in a day without a significant break or other
activity.

By creating the rules ahead of time with your child, you have set in place some
agreed-upon terms. Additionally, you could add in some consequences if they
choose to break the rules and continue the inappropriate action. Just like the
creation of the rules, the consequences should be decided on together. You’ll
find that often your child may come up with harsher consequences than you!
In the screen-time scenario, a consequence might be the loss of “entertain-
ment-based” screen time in the next 24 or 48 hours. Having the mutually
created rule in place helps avoid potential clashes and arguments and helps
your child self-regulate their screen time more effectively.

Drama has always been a part of growing up, especially in middle school.
Technology has amplified the ease with which drama can grow and has taken
away an emotional and empathetic element of it, as people are now just words
and emojis. These are extremely hard for your kids to avoid once they own a
device. It might be Snapchats or texts or tweets—regardless, there are times
when they will get pulled into these conversations and not even know it. There
are other times when they might instigate it.

While having a general rule or guideline about this behavior is advisable,
this is one case where the action isn’t quite so black and white. Rather, this
is an opportunity to have a discussion and lend some guidance to your child
about how they should respond and gracefully exit a drama session over text
messages. The good news is, by putting some household guidelines in place,
that discussion can take place well before anything like this actually happens

82 Mobile Learning Mindset: The Parent’s Guide to Supporting Digital Age Learners

Mobile Learning Mindset: The Parent’s Guide to Supporting Digital-Age Learners 202