Do you remember those commercials with the egg sizzlings in a frying pan with the tagline, “this is your brain on drugs”. Well, the world may think I’m a great parent but the truth is I addicted my child to the drug called electronic stimulation. The main school-of-thought for regulating children’s screen usage is based on time. That’s how we’ve kept (a semblance of) balance. But over time Moriarty has found more useful things to do with his phone, it’s harder to monitor, and it’s become an issue. It used to just be a conduit for audiobooks and timers. Then I let him put some word and puzzle games on it. Over time it’s gotten to be a big point of contention. Last night things came to a head. After we put Lorelei to bed Pip and I were going to watch a grown-up TV show. Moriarty was bored and didn’t have access to his phone like most evenings. And he melted down. He cried for hours. It felt like when we were helping them learn the very challenging skill of falling asleep by themselves. The crying was always heartbreaking, but learning new skills is hard. I was very clear with Moriarty that I wasn’t ignoring or punishing him, but I was setting the boundary that he needs to learn the skill of entertaining himself without any electronics. He sobbed for hours until I finally helped him find a book to read in bed to help his brain calm down so he could sleep. Withdrawal from the drug of electronic stimulation. There’s another school-of-thought around screen time that gives the child more autonomy. They have the expectation to do X activities before they can have screens, but there’s no limit after that. The list includes things like homework, chores, read something for X min, go outside for Y min, do something creative, etc. It should take a lot of time, but it should also be things that align with our values and help teach him more management and self-regulation skills. Pip and I are talking about how to implement this with him soon. This whole conscientious parenting thing is a giant pain in the butt! Can’t I just scroll Reddit while the kids raise themselves? :-) He is showing new signs of maturity. We were playing Mastermind the other night and out of the blue he said, “I cheated once”. I was really impressed. All kids lie; it’s normal development, but he used to just deny even obvious lying. The fact that he had no external pressure, and just admitted to me, was new.
I’ve been working longer hours than usual in preparation for an upcoming FDA submission so I’ve seen little of the kids in the evenings. To help make up for that Pip and I have been doing some 1:1 activities w/ the kids. I took Lorelei out for pancakes one day and Pip took out Moriarty for the best chicken in Seattle (shoutout Ezell’s). Then the next weekend we switched. It’s nice to get to talk to just one kid at a time. That quality time goes a long way toward their overall behavior and my degree of enjoyment of them.
Lorelei’s update this month is just funny stuff she’s said. She hasn’t hit anything noticeably new, she’s just this tornado of swirling blond giggles wearing one or more princess crowns at a time.
L: Is there a number bigger than 100?
Pip: Yep! Lots
L: two hundreds together makes one really big hundred.
I was explaining to Lorelei (and Lisandro really) about seeing a tornado with my own eyes when I lived in TN. Lorelei asked to see the video and I said, we didn't have phones back then. There is no video. She asked to see the pics and I reiterated. Then she exclaimed, "there were grown-ups with no phones??"
L to Pip: Your eyebrows are very long.
They're, like, longer than pickles!
(Contemplating)
Actually, pickles are longer.
New photos, password “mal”