Overcoming Screen Time Fears in Your Homeschool

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Welcome to the #TechieHomeschool IRL blog series!  In this post, my guest Kim will challenge you to tackle your fears about screen time, and give you some great ideas to ponder as you navigate homeschooling in the age of amazing technology.

It's a digital world! We live in an age of 24/7 connection and the technology advances seem to come ever more quickly. At the same time, we as homeschool parents are bombarded with fear inducing headlines everywhere we look about the dangers of too much screen time and gaming.

Let's talk frankly about overcoming screen time fears in your homeschool.

If you are tired of the constant battles around devices, tech use, and gaming, my hope is that this post will give you a starting point to think differently, become curious, and step back from fear and anxiety.

I'm also going to advocate for allowing space in your day for some different voices and leaders, rather than mainstream media, whose click bait headlines center around fear.

I will also give you some steps to take to partner with your kids so they feel heard and understood, and you can work together to discover a good balance for your family.

Examine your own fears about screens and learning

As homeschooling parents, many times our actions flow out of our unconscious beliefs and fears. It's important to take a look at what beliefs we've internalized about screens and learning.

Look, there's a lot of negativity out there about screens from all kinds of doctors and experts.

I wish I could sit across from the table and share with you everything I've learned about how society, doctors, and experts respond to growth and technological advancement throughout history.

Hint: it's never positive.

Back when the kaleidoscope was invented? Kids were ruining their eyesight and society was doomed! People everywhere were running into walls, because they had one eye shut and one peering into the tin tube. The horrors.

What about when the printing press was invented? Books were dangerous, especially to women who were prone to hysterics and couldn't be trusted to tell the difference between fantasy and real life. 

Newspapers were going to end civilized conversation as people hid behind papers instead of talking around the breakfast table. Some thought radio was degrading people's ability to think.

Now, we think of kaleidoscopes, newspapers, books, and radio as good, grounded, wholesome, ‘real life' ways to learn, play, be entertained and communicate. Is it surprising to you that all of these things were regarded with suspicion and even labeled as dangerous when they first appeared?

Imagine. In 30 or 40 years the Nintendo Switch will be charming and old-fashioned.

Be intentional about learning from pro-technology leaders

Tech is here to stay. There's no way around it. We are not raising our kids into the world we grew up into – it's a different world entirely.

Most of our kids will grow up to do work in which screens and technology will play a key role. My husband writes software for a living in the virtual reality sector. I blog and design printables…all online. Before I had my daughter, I worked as an office manager, and guess what I did all day? Yep, I worked at a desk with a screen.

One unconscious bias I see in a lot of parents I talk to about screen use and gaming is that we all gravitate toward believing that our childhood was better in almost all ways. I see it in memes all the time. “We drank from the garden hose!” “We played outside all day!” We tend to idolize our own childhoods, if we had a healthy home life.

Here's the thing though – we did those things because that was how society worked then. Nowadays you might get protective services called on you if your child is outside alone for hours per day. It's not the same world! Kids still play… but their play has changed.

And play is still critically important. Video games are play. Pure and simple.

If you need a boost in changing your mindset around gaming and tech use, here are a few amazing thinkers and leaders for you to follow that have been helpful for me:

Jane McGonigal

If you only take one resource away from reading this post, I hope that it's following and learning from Jane McGonigal. She is a gamer, game designer, and advocate for gamifying as much of life as you can – I love her joy and passion.

Dig into her website and read her books! I especially love Reality is Broken.

Here are some links to start:

• Research, editorials, keynotes & more
• Take Jane McGonigal's future thinking course
• Play SuperBetter, her game now backed by clinical research

Peter Grey

Peter Grey's work has been transformational for me. He is a psychologist and unschooling advocate who dives into the importance of play and autonomy for kids. He writes regularly for Psychology Today and has a wonderful book called Free to Learn.

Some articles that have shifted my thinking:

• Sense and Nonsense about video game addiction
• Why kids are suffering today
• Cognitive benefits of playing video games

Blake Boles

Blake Boles is a world-traveling mentor to teens and advocate for interest-led learning and unschooling.

He's written several books, my favorite being Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School? which is an excellent read! I also highly recommend his newsletter which is always chock full of interesting tidbits, thought provoking articles that he finds on the web, and peeks into his adventurous life.

Join in your kid's gaming and YouTube passions

One way to overcome screen time fears in your homeschool is to join in your kid’s gaming and YouTube passions. Really. Do it with them. Put YouTube up on your TV in the living room and watch together. Get your own device and play the video games together.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents just didn't understand what you were into? Music? Fashion? D & D?

When I was a teen it was music and those teen/tween magazines, boom boxes, and Jordache jeans. My mom wouldn't even let me spend my own money on those jeans because she thought they were a waste. (And look at me writing about it 30 years later!)

Here's your chance! Instead of being the “they just don't understand” parent, be the parent that does understand! Be the parent that sits on the couch together playing Breath of the Wild, Animal Crossing, or Minecraft. Ask your kids who their favorite YouTubers are and watch them so you can ask questions around the dinner table.

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Then watch your kids light up.

Building your relationship this way not only lets your kids know you see them and care about what they care about, but it really helps you release fear and worry around gaming and tech as you see how much they are learning and why it's so immersive.

Focus on the relationship and connection, always

Before I understood that my daughter was neurodivergent and gifted (2e or twice exceptional), I spent many years trying everything I read in all the mainstream parenting and discipline books of the day. To no avail.

I thought my job as a parent was to have it all figured out, lay down expectations, and then enforce them. Do what you're told. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

It turns out that those years of feeling completely inadequate and wondering how I could be doing everything wrong turned into the biggest mindset shift, one that changed the course of my parenting and homeschooling.

Relationship and connection is the foundation on which everything else (academics, productivity, communication, cooperation) rests. Mental health is the single most important keystone in our homeschool. Kids are people – not blank slates for us to fill up with all of our adult knowings.

I will advocate until the end of my days for parents to choose connection and relationship over academic achievement and keeping up with public school standards.

What does this have to do with screen time? Happy you asked.

In our home, my daughter does not have screen limits. She does a variety of things on devices, including parts of our homeschool academics. But she is a passionate gamer and loves watching YouTube (gamers, channels like TedEd, 5 Minute Crafts, artists, and a wide variety of things). She games and exercises with VR. She's got a device going most of the day.

She also tells me that gaming, listening to her custom Spotify channels, and having YouTube playing while she's pursuing other interests like art and baking helps manage her anxiety. (I have lots of friends whose moms had daytime TV running non-stop as they were growing up!)

Here's the thing: because we work together on our goals for homeschooling, on what each person needs to do in our household so everything goes smoothly, and the things that I have outlined of importance as a parent, we don't have battles.

When I ask her to set down the iPad and do her chores, she does. When I say it's time to do some homeschool, she does. (OK, sometimes there's a little whining. But we don't fight, slam doors, or battle around electronics.)

She knows I respect what she loves to do. And in return, she is respectful around our family priorities, homeschooling, and even when I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do.

Are we perfect? Of course not. We have our share of conflict and disagreements. But we have a base of trust and understanding and our challenges don't usually last too long.

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Manage your own emotions and fears

Parenting is hard. And parenting in todays super-connected, tech-driven world is a big change for those of us that grew up without smartphones and YouTube. We have a lot of worries and fears about our kids growing up to be successful, happy adults! (That's part of what makes a good parent!)

But how will my kid ever be successful and learn to do hard things when all they love is video games?

Because we grow beyond what we do and love when we are 12-17. We all do. We have to stop pressuring teens to be expressing adult values and discipline when their brains are still developing. They need play and they need autonomy to develop into healthy adults.

It's critically important to manage your own emotions and fears here. In the 70s and 80s when I grew up, experts were harping on the fact that TV was going to rot our brains. That messaging was everywhere. It's no different today – it's just the focus has shifted from TV to gaming and “screen time.”

And we GenXers managed to grow up and become productive members of society. Imagine that!

Kids are smart. They pick up on fear, worry, and especially disapproval even when we are not putting it all into words. Teens, especially – and they will respond to those unspoken messages.

Working on our own fears – and admitting that we long for the simpler days of our own childhoods – can help us move past anxious thought patterns and grow trust and cooperation in relationship with our kids.

I hope this post has given you some ideas to think about, challenged you to tackle your fears, and given you some alternative voices to learn from as we navigate homeschooling in the age of amazing technology. Lean into what your kids love and build those relationships… and play some Mario Kart. It's a blast!

Techie Homeschool in Real Life Series

This post is part of the Techie Homeschool in Real Life blog series. If you are looking to increase your homeschool tech knowledge, you won't want to miss any of the guest posts! Learn more about the series and read all of the other posts included here.

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