Back in June I talked about Shaw’s newest product the BlueCurve Home app and how it was helping with the tablet time battle in our home. I’m excited to report back on how connecting and pausing as a family. You can read about that here: https://northernstyleexposure.com/sponsored/lifestyle-tablet-wars-parenting-tip/
The Tablet Time Battle
It’s no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with screens. Clearly my job as a content creator has me on my phone for way too many hours in the day. Unfortunately my kids see that. It has been my parenting mission in the last year to strike a balance when it comes to technology in our home and especially when used by our kids. The countless articles I’ve read over the years on the internet have been linking excessive blue light exposure to some negative potential impacts. Although I’m no expert I’ve tried to be mindful of some of the potential impacts screen time can have on my kid’s health. From a disruption to the bedtime/sleep routine, to digital eye strain or retina damage and the impact it may have on early childhood development. Blue light does occur naturally but I’m referring to exposure to screens of all kinds: TV’s, phones, and tablets. I’m happy to report on this front, I feel like I’ve had some big successes in our household with our daily screen time battle. So I thought I’d share my Top 3 Mom Tricks for beating back screen time usage:
1) Know Where You Are At: Tracking, setting alerts and seeing usage is the first step to finding balance in the home. We set a limit, let’s say 25 minutes on YouTube Kids. I set an alert on my Shaw BlueCurve Home app. When Alastair reaches his limit, I get an alert on my iPhone. Plus, the app tracks Wi-Fi usage per device/ person. So if Alastair gets hold of his tablet without me noticing, I can see that usage on the app and can adjust our day according to my goal for screen time consumption.
