This customizable flowchart helps my kids manage their own screen time
I have a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, and ending screen time is by far the trickiest transition in our household. For my son with ADHD, the high-dopamine payoff combined with his hyperfocus makes it especially tough to stop. I used to dread the transition so much that I seesawed between having a fairly unstructured approach to going cold turkey with a six-month screen detox. I eventually realized that neither of these avoidant approaches were going to help them learn to deal with transitions better or find balance with tech.
When I discovered creator and parenting educator Destini Ann’s screen time flow chart ($19), I felt like I had finally found an intuitive system that would be easy to adapt. The flow chart takes kids through a series of prompts to answer and a list of related activities they need to accomplish before they can get more screen time.
For example, the first prompt in their flow chart might ask if they have completed a chore. If not, they can choose a chore from the options listed. If so, they can move on to the next flow chart prompt. There are four prompts in the cycle of the flow chart, and the prompts and their related list of activities to choose from are all customizable. There’s even a step-by-step plan for how to collaborate with kids to create a successful flow chart.
I decided to give it a try to see if it would diffuse our power struggle dynamic and teach them to manage their own screen time.
How the screen time flow chart works
First, you choose an initial amount of daily screen time. For my family, we decided on a weekday amount and a weekend amount. My sons agreed on a number for both, which was actually very reasonable, so we ran with it.
Then, you decide how much additional screen time they’ll get after completing their flowchart.
Next, think about what your limit will be. For example, will there be a cap on the number of times they can cycle through the flow chart? Will there be a cut-off time every day for turning off screens? For our family, we have different windows of screen time for weekdays and weekends and they can cycle through the flow chart as many times within those windows.
To come up with your flow chart boxes, Destini Ann suggests thinking about what areas of growth you want the chart to support. For our family, we honed in on household contributions (like learning how to do specific chores, caring for our dog, and basic tidying), homework independence, family connection, and self-care.
Those areas of growth became the inspiration for our flowchart boxes, and then we collaborated on a list of activities that fell into each of those categories. Since the template is customizable, you can easily swap out activities. For instance, once the kids master learning how to load and unload the dishwasher, we can swap in a new household chore. And for summer, we’ll swap in another category for homework.
What our screen time flow chart looks like right now
How my kids are adapting
We’ve been testing this out for about a month now and it’s the most thoughtful, collaborative, and well-organized approach we’ve ever tried. There are still instances where my kids get upset or push back when their initial screen time ends. That said, having a visual plan in place for getting more screen time means they eventually turn to the flow chart instead of trying to bargain or argue with me.
Making sure that at least half of the activities listed are things they consider to be high-value activities, like having 1:1 parent time—even if it’s just 15 minutes—helps make the flow chart seem like less of a drag. Sometimes, they get so absorbed in a flow chart activity that they lose any urgency to get back to the screens.
There are loads of ways to approach screen time boundaries, which can honestly feel overwhelming. If you’re struggling to find a good screen time blueprint that’s easy to tweak for your family’s needs, I highly recommend giving this flow chart a try.
source https://www.mother.ly/child/customizable-screen-time-flow-chart-for-kids-review/
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