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Dad shares the unique 8-point checklist his kids must finish before they get screen time

A lot of us could use a checklist like this, to be honest.

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Imagine if everyone adhered to these unique screen-time guidelines.

We know too much screen time is not good for us. We also know that younger folks are particularly susceptible to screen addiction. Crucially, teachers and psychologists have been sounding the alarm about the effects of too much screen time on young people for years now. Reports flood in every year that more and more people in schools struggle to do anything without ChatGPT's help, that they're way behind in learning fundamental skills, that they're disrespectful and lazy. Every generation has been "concerned" about the one that comes directly after them, bemoaning that they don't have the same values or that their brains are being rotted by Elvis, rock and roll, radio, or television. So some of the doom and gloom is probably overstated, but there's truthfully never been anything quite like iPhones loaded up with TikTok and other forms of hyper-dopamine-fueled social media.

Still, it's unlikely that a young person, or any person, really, can exist in modern society without some level of access to screens. So parents need to effectively help teens and tweens manage the habit and offset the dangers as much as humanly possible.

Psychiatrist, author, and dad of seven Richard Wadsworth recently went viral after showing his own personal strategy for getting his kids to do something other than scrolling.


screen addiction teens, limiting screen time, teens good habits, kids, parenting, teens, dads, moms, psychologist Kids are playing outside way less. So parents are looking for new ways to get them exercise. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It could be the perfect solution for parents to not only break screen addiction, but instill some other healthy ritual as well.

In the clip, we first see Wadsworth’s tween son doing deltoid exercises with dumbbells. Which he apparently got up at 6:30 am to do. What could possibly incentivize practically anyone, let alone a preteen to wake up at the crack of dawn to lift weights? Was his dad forcing him to exercise?

No. Wadsworth went on to show a typed out list of various tasks that must be performed before his kids even think about setting eyes on a phone or tablet. The list included a short workout in the form of one mile on the treadmill or 20 minutes of another exercise.

Wadsworth explained that rather than enforcing strict rules, this method provides necessary structure without taking away choice.

“I’m not forcing my son to exercise every day, but I am setting rules and boundaries around his screen time,” he said. “He decided he wanted to have more time after school to play with his friend. And so in order to do that, he realized that he’d need to wake up a little bit earlier and exercise in the morning.”

In addition to exercise, the list included domestic chores like cleaning the bedroom and shared areas, finishing homework, doing laundry, preparing for the next day…and, perhaps most importantly…making sure the toilet is flushed. (Not cleaned, just flushed. Parents everywhere can relate.)

“We have all of their screens locked away. And if they want access to any of them, they need to come ask us and we’ll go through the list together. And they’re not getting their screens until the list is done,” Wadsworth continued.

He also drew a comparison between screen time and sugary sweets, noting how most parents probably wouldn’t routinely allow kids to eat dessert before a nutritious meal, but instead allow it to be a treat.

“Just as you would hopefully have your kids eat dinner before they had their dessert, you should probably be having them do something positive…before they get on their screens." Hence why he tries to get his kids to complete their list before going to the phone.

And in case you’re wondering how Wadsworth’s son feels about all this, he reported having “so much energy for school” feeling “so much better” since his dad introduced the to-do list.

@doctorwadsworth

#greenscreen #parenting #parentingtips

Bottom line: kids need guidance from their parents. And Wadsworth recommends clear cut boundaries to help them develop good habits, “because if you don’t do it, nobody else is.”

Wadsworth’s parenting hack was well received, with quite a few grown adults saying they could benefit from this type of boundary-setting in their own life.

“Even I’m addicted to this screen. I have to tell myself to put it down all the time and I’m a grown adult. Kids definitely need this!” one user wrote.

Another added, “I need someone to do this for me (I’m 28).” To which Wadsworth replied, “we all need parents sometimes.”

screen addiction teens, limiting screen time, teens good habits, kids, parenting, teens, dads, moms, psychologist Phones and social media aren't going anywhere. We have to figure out how to make it work. Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

"We implemented a similar plan, and I was surprised at how easy they took to it. It’s almost like kids need structure. What a concept!" another user remarked.

While the inclusion of exercise on the To-Do List might be controversial, the facts don't lie. Most kids and teens aren't getting enough daily physical activity. Kids don't play outside or walk to school anymore, either. So if they're not exercising, they're probably not moving much at all. And that's just as dangerous as too much TikTok.

Even with potential TikTok bans, social media isn’t going anywhere. The sooner parents can implement guidelines like these, the better equipped their kids will be at balancing tech savviness with tech dependence.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Mom shares why she took her tween daughter's phone away after having it for a year

She explained that it wasn't social media use that led to her decision, but rather "hormonal girls being jealous.”

@the_geriatricmillennial/TikTok

“We can’t keep them from having phones forever ... they’re a part of the teenage experience now, but at what expense?”

Kids and phones—it’s the modern age dilemma of every parent. When to let them have a phone, what apps to allow them to use on it, how to monitor their usage…none of these are questions with set answers. The only thing we do know is that making the wrong choice can lead to serious consequences for a child’s mental health and development, so parents are understably wary.

One mom named Kailey recently shared how this anxiety even led her to taking away her tween daughter’s phone after she had already had it for a year.

In a video posted to her TikTok, Kelly explained that at first giving her two daughters phones at the age of 10 brought her “peace of mind.”

Phones gave her daughters more independence to roam the neighborhood and go to friend’s houses, while still being able to contact her if anything went wrong, and she could track their whereabouts. This felt especially important to her since so many parents don’t have landlines, nor do they exchange each other’s contact information.

Kelly “struggled” with this decision, given all the information out about granting kids phones too early, but ultimately thought this was the best option.

That is…until now. Kailey went on to say that over a year's time, she has seen firsthand how “detrimental” phones can be.

Perhaps most surprising of all, Kailey added that it wasn’t social media that was the big problem. “You can block the social media. That stuff’s all easy,” she said.

“What it is ... is hormonal girls being jealous.”


@the_geriatricmillennial

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Kailey then shared the story of how her daughter was out with friends when one of those friends posted on Snapchat. Her daughter doesn’t have Snapchat but was recorded in the video. Another friend who does have the app saw the video and demanded to know why Kailey’s daughter was hanging out with that friend instead of them. Cue drama.

“And then my daughter feels bad and she has to make up a lie because she doesn’t want to hurt that friend’s feelings.”

While Kailey knows that jealousy and teenage girls have gone hand-in-hand long before iPhones, she felt that—despite all the precautions she’s taken—it only made the problem worse. This eventually led her to deactivating her now 11-year-old’s phone.

“We can’t keep them from having phones forever...they’re a part of the teenage experience now, but at what expense?” she concluded. “We as parents need to band together and agree that we’re not going to allow it until 14, 15, 16.”

Down in the comments, other parents understood Kailey’s experience completely.

One person shared “My daughter is 11. I reluctantly got her the phone last summer. I totally regret it. The texting drama is nuts. I have all social media blocked.”

However, many felt like this decision would bring about more problems—either by compromising her daughter’s trust or ending up making her feel isolated from her friends.

“When you take it away they will hide more from you,” one person said. “They will make accounts on their friends phones, and now they won’t talk to you about problems.”

“I was cut off from my friends because I was the only one without a phone (at 11 specifically) and it was the worst thing for friendships. Nobody cared to include the girl they can’t text. I’m 26 now,” another recalled.

Others pointed out that it might be overlooking the real problem: navigating conflict.

As one person put it: “It sounds like you need to have multiple conversations with her about making good friends vs bad friends and being mindful about who she surrounds herself with and a lesson on boundaries with friends.”

In a follow-up video, Kailey stood by her choice, acknowledging that while we’re never going back to a time without smartphones and their inherent issues, she thinks that waiting until her kid is older is the necessary “happy medium.”

Finding a happy medium is a good way of putting it, for sure. And getting to that balanced place might require some experimentation, since no two kids are alike, and since this is still fairly new parenting territory. Of course, knowing how long to keep kids as kids is not new and will always be a challenge for parents in one way or another.

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Mom has a different take for the millennial parents 'always on their phone'

It's pretty spot on.

@sheisapaigeturner/TikTok

Maybe there's more to it than "bad parenting."

Unless you've been living on a remote, deserted island, you’re probably addicted to your phone. We’ve all been guilty of ignoring someone right in front of us because of text or a notification. It’s so common we even have a word for it: “phubbing.”

But parental phubbing, while just as prevalent as ordinary phubbing, is often seen as more than just a social faux pas. And this perhaps isn’t totally without merit, since research has shown that kids do in fact feel the effects of being ignored in this way.

And yet, as one mom eloquently points out, we can’t just chalk it up to “bad parenting.”

“I was just at my son's Taekwondo practice, and I'd say 75% of the parents are on their phones, right?” Paige Turner, a mom of four, says in a clip posted to her TikTok.

She continues: “And I have seen a lot of commentary about how parents are always on their phones, right? Parents are always texting. They're not watching their kids. They're not seeing how great their kids doing during Taekwondo or baseball or gymnastics, whatever it is. They're just too busy on their phone and why can't they just take a break and look up?”

And this is where Turner offers her alternate, but so spot on take.

“I think the average parent is being asked to do a lot, right? They are working full-time. There's a lack of childcare, so oftentimes, these parents are not only on their phones, I sit next to parents who are on their laptops at Taekwondo practice because we are technically still working, right?” she says.

Since most parents are technically still on the clock by the time an afternoon practice rolls around, of course they’re “Slacking on their phone. They're answering emails. Sometimes, they're even listening to a call,” Turner explains.

So maybe it’s not just about being present with their kids but about parents having to be on call 24/7.

“In an ideal world, our kids would have practices and games at times that allowed us to be fully present,” Turner says. But in reality, “we are being asked to go in many different directions right now, and so many of us don’t have that luxury.”

Turner also points out that the obligation to be at every practice or game is a fairly new concept, parents used to simply drop kids off and pick them up once whichever activity was over.

“We are being asked not only to do more physically: be at every practice, be at every game, volunteer, work full-time, pick up your kids from the bus stop, all these things. We're also being asked to be fully present for all of it, which is impossible,” she notes.

@sheisapaigeturner As parents, we need to be conscious of one and how we use our phones. However, a lot of the critique online specifically about parents being on their phone I could activities is likely missing the full picture. Many parents are multitasking. They are working while at basketball, they are ordering groceries while at dance practice. They are doing many things at one time and juggling all of it as soon as they can. #millennailmom #sportsmom #parentingadvice #socialmedia #workingmom #wfhmom #workingparent ♬ original sound - Paige

Turner concludes by sharing that she posted this perspective to offer some grace against the common “ugly narrative” that parents are simply not paying attention to their kids when parents are most likely doing the very best that they can.

Several parents agreed with Turner and added their own takes on the issue.

“The idea that we have to be present every single second of our child’s life is just INSANE. Especially coming from the ‘go outside and don’t come back until dark’ generation,” one person wrote.

Another added, “also, my phone is where I schedule appointments, order groceries, order prescriptions, fill out forms for all the things, research therapists and camps and doctors and adhd, & I’m a grad student.”

A few even pointed out that even when they aren’t working, phone use during practice shouldn’t be considered taboo.

“Even if you AREN’T working or doing something productive on your phone. Why would I want to watch soccer drills for an hour? Let me play candy crush in peace lol,” one person quipped.

Another seconded, “I’m absolutely not working but I’m using the opportunity of my child being fully engaged with an activity to freaking relax a little. I don't have to just sit and watch them 24/7 to have a relationship.”

Bottom line: of course, it’s important for parents to be mindful of their phone usage, especially when around kids. But our world makes that nearly impossible, and passing judgment on the moms and dads who do find themselves scrolling isn’t of help to anyone. A little compassion can go a long way here.

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