My kid got in trouble at school last year, so I reprimanded him by taking away his tablet for a couple of weeks.

By the end of two weeks, he had forgotten about it, and I was able to keep it out of his hands for nearly three months. Soccer, baseball, and Tae Kwon Do multiple nights a week helped keep him busy and otherwise distracted. I thought I might try and eliminate it entirely for a couple of reasons:

  • He doesn’t need it to learn. By the time he entered Pre-K, he could already spell and write his name and recognize some words. He could count to higher numbers and was starting to understand the concept of addition. He didn’t learn any of that from the “educational” games on his tablet. He learned it from me, his mom, who bought all those lesson books at the dollar store to help him learn, dare I say, organically.
  • He turns into an absolute and complete monster when it is time to turn the tablet off. It didn’t matter if it was to take a break, or to go to bed. He was a different kid. Angry. Impatient. Not hungry. And more so than the average 5-year-old.

I saw this three-month hiatus from the tablet as a fun victory for Mom, but by the time school was over in June, and he was home, and I was working from home, I was regretting my decision to take this (noble) road less traveled.

There was a study conducted in 2020 where children were given a tablet to use, and then the parent had to take it away after a short time. The children’s behavior and willingness to play and collaborate with their parents in subsequent activities was measured.

The study found: “Toddler behavioral dysregulation after any tablet play may be the result of engagement-promoting design features of tablet apps, as found in prior content analyses of popular children’s apps. The tablet did not have a priming effect on toddlers’ behavior in cooperative activities, which suggests that abrupt discontinuation of tablet play is what incites tantrum behaviors and not negative priming….”

Aside from the immediate effects of the tablet, I witnessed changes in my child’s overall behavior – even on non-tablet days. He was less willing to go outside and play. He didn’t want to help me with his basic chores. He was argumentative and lazy. It didn’t matter how much of the tablet I let him use each day, the results were the same. It was almost as if he was forgetting all the polite niceties that I had taught him as essential to being a human.

While removal of the tablet was successful in short spurts, the reality is that working parents are unable to do this full time. When I was bragging to other moms about how blissful those three months were, I could see their faces change. I could see multiple emotions that ranged from “Oh wow, I’m a terrible mom to let my kid use the tablet,” to “But how would I get anything done or have a moment to myself?”

I felt those feelings myself as I tried to ensure my kid had a 90’s summer. I was probably 85% successful at this endeavor. I only signed my son up for four weeks of camp. He had one week of soccer day camp, and then three weeks at his Tae Kwon Do dojang for day camp. These were not consecutive weeks, so the schedule got a little unhinged, but we managed.

When I look back at my summers as a 90’s kid, I ran around outside, I played, I hung out with friends, I did a couple weeks at Girl Scout camp, but I’d have to say that 75% of it was TV. But it was a different TV. It was commercial-laced TV. Meaning I could take breaks to get a snack, or go to the bathroom, or bother my brother for a minute. Today, TV is just as bad as the tablet. My son gets mad if I don’t click “OK” to skip the intro or advance to the next episode.

So, my 90’s summer idea didn’t work out as expected because it was allowing him to participate in the same patience-stripping behavior as the tablet. However, my goal of making it less stressful than the school year was accomplished, (because all kids deserve a break, and mom shouldn’t have to make someone else’s lunch 365 and barely eat one of her own.)

Here’s why I bring this all up: My kid got in trouble again at school (unclear if he was the instigator), so I took away the tablet again because it’s really the only recourse I have as threatening to take away other toys doesn’t work. Halfway through his sentence, he is attending day camp on a day off from school. There’s scheduled “quiet time” after lunch where many of the kids will bring a tablet or video game. And I let him bring his tablet because if I don’t, I know he’s just going to watch, or take a turn on, someone else’s device. I don’t have a prayer of him using the activity books I’d so wishfully pack.

Also, and let’s be real here: Peer pressure.

Tablets and the like for kids are unavoidable today. I can restrict their use as much as I want, but they’ll soon become a necessary evil among us all. I’ll just go down kicking and screaming. Or my kid will. One of us will be screaming. The lesson here is to just do what you feel is best for your kid. For us, it’s very limited tablet use.

(But to my nieces reading this, my house is still a phone-free zone when you come over for family gatherings.)