Screen Time Survival

We're rapidly approaching two months since our new normal began.  In some ways it's gotten far more comfortable than is probably healthy.  In others it is a daily "Groundhog Day"-style struggle.  But we're healthy, we're mostly employed, and we're muddling through--albeit with too much yelling and battling over schoolwork and WAY too much screen time.

The screens are starting to make me nuts...even for myself.  I stare at one for the better part of my eight-hour workday--mostly since I know the distractions are endless and forcing myself to sit at my desk minimizes them.  I miss being able to get up to go ask a co-worker a work question while I give my eyes a break.  If I get up here, it inevitably leads to 15+ minutes of random housework or kid stuff, so I try to avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary.  I'm also spending way too much time with my phone.  Over the weekend my thumb hurt from holding the phone and using it to scroll.  That's a bad sign.  When I have some spare time, I am trying to speedily get through the first 4-1/2 seasons of Fuller House on Netflix (before the June 2 premiere of the final episodes) and catch up on some of my DVR shows on demand, since Jacob monopolizes the TV with the DVR most of the time now (more on that in a second).  At least I've gotten really resourceful with using my phone as a mini-TV.

Craig is rather Netflix-obsessed, as well.  He usually spends a good chunk of the day watching something, often The Office or some random movie, often while he's working or working out.

Because the weather has been generally awful, screens have taken over for the boys.  Both have online school work to do, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Jacob lacks hobbies despite my frequent requests that he find one (besides basketball), so he's either on his phone looking at YouTube, or on the Xbox.  It used to be that most of his time was spent playing NBA 2K20, but now he's added the dreaded Fortnite to the mix.  His friends were playing that more often, and since he's socially disconnected from school and basketball, it seemed to be the best way to give him some contact with friends.

If that wasn't bad enough, of course Carter had to get in on the act.  By some miracle, it's one of the few things they can play together (mostly) harmoniously.  They even play together with Jacob's friends, which is sort of shocking to me that Jacob would allow it, but somehow it works.  Carter has to play on Craig's phone, however--for multiple reasons mostly involving controlling how much he plays and who he's talking to--so that's not ideal for Craig.  I don't love Carter playing that game, but we're at a level of desperation where we need to keep them busy and if they're getting along doing that, maybe there's hope for something else down the road.  It is cute watching them high five and celebrate when they win a Victory Royale!

Carter is legit obsessed with screens and it's getting really hard to manage.  He will wake up first thing and go find his tablet and play on that until we're up and force him to get dressed and come down for breakfast.  If we don't catch him the second he finishes eating, he will try to run back up and play more until we catch him.  We struggle through a few rounds of school work, which he only gets through so he can be rewarded with a break, at which point he goes back to the tablet until we get back to school or have lunch, depending on our schedules.  He won't come down for lunch until his food is ready on the table--and if it's not, he tries to go back up and play for a few more minutes.  It's incredibly annoying.  Once his school work is done, it's a constant struggle to get him to do anything else.  He would play it 24/7 if we let him, to the exclusion of meals, sleep, and everything else.  If we want him to do other things, we pretty much have to take it away...at which point he complains for a while, eventually plays nicely, and then complains a bit more.  He hates playing alone so when I'm working I can't expect Craig to play with him constantly, and when I'm off there's only so much I can offer.  He's still a terrible loser so games aren't particularly fun, and I'm not so great at the army-guys-in-a-magnetic-tile-fort battles that he does with Craig.  I do better with Hot Wheels tracks and magnetic tile builds and things like that, but he's not usually too into that stuff, particularly if a screen is an option.  Everything else pales in comparison.  It's extremely frustrating.  Oh, and outside time never lasts long because his sore-loser-self usually finds some sort of injustice rather quickly into a basketball game and uses that as an excuse to come back in.  We've found a little success getting him back on his big wheel and bike, but he needs us keeping an eye on him for that stuff, too.  Independent activities are just not his forte.

Carter literally talks about little else outside of Minecraft, Fortnite, other online games, and YouTubers associated with those games.  He's constantly asking questions about what we think is stronger, or would you rather live here or there, or whatever...and it's not the easiest of conversation topics when you don't play.  But it's sort of like Jacob's obsession with sports.  Do you try to make him diversify a bit so people don't think he's nuts, or do you accept that this is his "thing" and try to encourage him?  I wish I had better ways to do the latter option without encouraging the screen time further, though.  I've unsuccessfully tried with some hand-me-down Minecraft books from Jacob and have considered buying school work books with a Minecraft theme, but I fear that might be a waste of money unless I mandate lessons prior to playing.  With the lack of typical school for a solid six months, that's still an option for over the summer.  Maybe someday he'll go be a programmer and it will all be worth it, but right now I'm not sure what to do.

After we all spend the evening mostly doing our own things, it's become a nightly tradition for Craig, Jacob and me to gather in the living room at 9pm for NBA 2K trivia.  I think there are 10 questions, and if you get all of them right, you you split the jackpot of online currency with other winners.  We've won a couple times, usually with small jackpots, but it's a challenge.  After that, Jacob will usually play games while one of us gets Carter in bed, and it's like pulling teeth to get Jacob to go to bed after that.  Usually at 10 or 10:15 we're yelling at him to go to bed, and it usually takes about 15 minutes for him to finish up and/or pull himself away.  Half the time lately he's taking over the bathroom just when I'm ready to get in there to brush my teeth, which is super annoying because it definitely throws off my schedule to get ready for bed.  Because we're tired by that point and have already gotten comfortable in our bedroom, we're usually going to sleep around the same time he is, which minimizes our adult time.  Our DVR is still pretty full as a result.  But if he doesn't play later at night, he misses some of his friends, so it's hard.  And he's doing well with his school work so I'm trying to choose my battles.  Unfortunately, with school ending soon, there's really no end in sight.

I know it sounds simple enough to have limits and force the boys off the devices, but when we're all stuck in this house with a finite number of activities (or at least short on the time/energy to create better ones), it's so hard to limit without the complaints putting you over the edge.  I get tired of listening to myself nag.  Sometimes you just need some quiet alone time, and electronics seem to be the only way to get that.  Nice days are easier, but when you have one kid that wants a screen more than anything else, it's still hard. We're going to have very tough habits to break once this is over.

I'm just so over the screens, for so many reasons.  But we have a very long road ahead, and unfortunately they are a necessary evil right now.  I just wish they weren't also feeling like one more obstacle we need to overcome.