Electronic Devices

Certainly not a new or under-explored topic in the context of raising children today. This is a battle we are now in the heat of around here. Lola is obsessed with her phone and some stupid game that she plays while Facetiming or speakerphoning with a friend. Oliver could spend hours watching dudes from England play stupid-ass video games and then just as much time playing the same games his self on Xbox.I am trying to limit how much "screen time" they have in a day or week. We've outlawed digital devices on Mondays and Wednesdays and limited weekday time to 120 minutes, with all devices off at 8:00pm. During the weekend they start with 120 minutes but they can earn more time during the week. For every 2 minutes of reading or exercise they can have 1 minute of electronic device time added to their weekend allotment.This is a relatively new effort to monitor screen time and it exemplifies one of my main troubles with this modern childrearing challenge. It requires a lot of supervision. On the one hand, of course, that's just the nature of parenting. But, the more complicated and oversight it requires, the less likely it will succeed.This middle ground is between the extremes of letting them have whatever screen time they want and banning devices entirely, neither of which are realistic.I am maybe less concerned than those who raise alarms about the damaging effects of electronic devices, from the mental to the physical. It seems clear to me that this way of "engaging" and moving within with the world is the trajectory of our culture. So to say they cannot immerse themselves in it seems like an old fart's attempt to deny the inevitable.What I keep hoping for is that they will get so bored of the damned things that they will just stop using them. Don't kids get bored easily?I'm also not moved by complaints that kids don't spend enough time outdoors or interacting with their peers. Perhaps if one's approach was to let kids dictate the amount of time they spent with an electronic device their appreciation for sunlight and nature might diminish. But, I suspect that's not a real danger for most parents (I know of). Hell, I had video game systems, spent countless hours (even into my twenties) playing mindless video games–including an Atari 800, which I learned to program in Basic on–and I still loved nature and being outdoors. (Although, I do wish I had discovered trail running when I was a teen, I woulda been awesome at it I bet.)In any case, I don't think electronic devices are any more of a "threat" to the future than whatever was the latest development in child entertainment than previous generations.