Harm #1Social Deprivation -- " Children need a lot of time to play with each other face to face, to foster social development." I am lucky that we live in a neighborhood with kids the same ages as my kids. We also have neighbors across the street with kids the same age and we have become like family to one another. My kids go over there and their kids will come to our house. Just yesterday the two boys were over and my younger two were playing with them inside building magnets. Then the four of them went outside where my older son and his friend were shooting hoops and next thing I know I look out the window and all 6 of them were running around playing hide and seek. I loved it! We live in a great neighborhood for in person social interactions with kids and are lucky. Even in the winter months, they may not want to be outside for long because of the temperature but they will play inside with the magnets, nerf guns, monster trucks, etc.
When it comes to Harm #1 listed in this book I feel for the most part my own children do not have social deprivation like other kids may have.
Harm #2 Sleep Deprivation -- "Teens need mlore sleep than adults -- at least nine hours a night for preteens and eight hours a night for teens." With my own children most nights they are getting the amount of sleep they need. Weekends we will let them stay up little later, especially if we do not have anything going on the next day so they have the chance to sleep in if they want.
Right now I have an app on their phone where I can set time limits for apps and set downtime for when the phone will turn off and turn back on. I have caught my son trying to take the phone to bed so he can watch his baseball and basketball youtube videos under the cover. He now knows that the phone will lock at a certain time so when he goes up to bed he doesnt try taking the phone anymore. They also ask for a TV in their room and have offered to buy one. We tell them no. Neither myself or my husband grew up with a TV in our bedrooms and even today we do not have a TV in our bedroom. In our household I feel we are doing a pretty good job wiht bedtime and no screens in their bedrooms.
But I see if with students, they come to school tired and you ask them what they were doing the night before and they tell me they were up late playing video games or talking with friends on their phone. They will say they need their phone because its their alarm, but a phone can be in downtime mood and the alarm will still go off. Why don't parents of preteens and teens shut the phones off at night so that their kids don't have that temptation to go on and instead when they get into bed and their head hits the pillow they go to sleep?
When it comes to Harm #1 listed in this book I feel for the most part my own children do not have social deprivation like other kids may have.
Harm #2 Sleep Deprivation -- "Teens need mlore sleep than adults -- at least nine hours a night for preteens and eight hours a night for teens." With my own children most nights they are getting the amount of sleep they need. Weekends we will let them stay up little later, especially if we do not have anything going on the next day so they have the chance to sleep in if they want.
Right now I have an app on their phone where I can set time limits for apps and set downtime for when the phone will turn off and turn back on. I have caught my son trying to take the phone to bed so he can watch his baseball and basketball youtube videos under the cover. He now knows that the phone will lock at a certain time so when he goes up to bed he doesnt try taking the phone anymore. They also ask for a TV in their room and have offered to buy one. We tell them no. Neither myself or my husband grew up with a TV in our bedrooms and even today we do not have a TV in our bedroom. In our household I feel we are doing a pretty good job wiht bedtime and no screens in their bedrooms.
But I see if with students, they come to school tired and you ask them what they were doing the night before and they tell me they were up late playing video games or talking with friends on their phone. They will say they need their phone because its their alarm, but a phone can be in downtime mood and the alarm will still go off. Why don't parents of preteens and teens shut the phones off at night so that their kids don't have that temptation to go on and instead when they get into bed and their head hits the pillow they go to sleep?