A Good Kind of Screen time?

We take a bit of an unorthodox approach to screen time.

My kids play outside a lot. Even when we lived in the desert and had a tiny backyard, they spent so much time out there – running, playing, building sandy-mud structures, and even creating their own worlds as they walked around and talked to each other. Now even more so that they have a lot more room to run and play, and that there’s so many projects they help with. (We recently moved to 8 acres in the South to homestead.)

So it may surprise some people the approach we take to screen time.

We don’t set a certain amount of screen time per week. Some weeks we’re pretty generous with it, and other weeks they have none. But most importantly…we don’t treat all screen time equally. Sitting watching a show is not the same as playing a cooperative game with a sibling. Playing a game by yourself for a half hour is not the same as coding for a half hour.

We teach our kids that a balance is important. That it’s not wrong to play video games, but as with all things, we have to look at the whole picture. That technology can be an amazing tool to use, but that it comes with pitfalls they have to navigate.

I love to see the ways my kids can get creative, whether coding a game in Scratch or creating a story in a Google Slideshow (one of my kids currently has an epic, several part animated comic series in progress right now). Coding requires a crazy amount of problem solving.

And we’ve seen the effects of this in our kids. We’ve watched them – individually and sometimes collaboratively – have to think deeply and problem solve. They’ve had to learn to not just get frustrated or give up when something is hard or they can’t quite figure out why the code they wrote isn’t doing what they want.

And one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen is them do this collaboratively. When one kid is working on a project and gets stuck or starts getting frustrated, another sibling might step in and ask, “Have you tried this?” or “Can I help you test this?” It’s helped them to learn how to offer help without bulldozing or being condescending, and help improve their empathy for one another. And most beautifully of all, we’ve seen this translate into other areas of life.

So that’s why we don’t lump creative projects that happen to use a screen – like creating a story in Google Slides or coding a project – in with all screen time.

Looking for ways to get your kids or students started with coding?

Some of the coding resources for kids out there can be a little gimmicky. We have a few favorites we love.

CodeSpark – This is a great program for beginners. You can get a free 30 day trial to test it out and see if it’s a good fit for your kids or students.

Scratch – This is a completely free program for kids made by MIT.

Looking for more ideas? We have a post full of our favorite coding activities and tools for kids – from teaching beginners with board games all the way up to resources for kids to completely create their own programs. And if they are ready to take the next step, the Raspberry Pi is an incredible tool that opens up worlds of possibilities (you can read my full review here and how it’s impacted our kids).