About two weeks ago, I was talking to a daddy friend of mine who has a daughter about the same age as Lili.
“When tablet time is up, it’s just easier to turn off the Wi-Fi and say, ‘Oops, guess it’s not working.'” It apparently saved him from having to endure another meltdown.
It seemed like an incredible idea at the time.
We got Lili (now four) a tablet of her own not too long ago. It has a handful of preschool age games on it and gives her the ability to talk to grandma through Facebook Messenger, as well as other family and friends that she cannot regularly see. Of course, she mostly just uses that feature to send me goofy pictures of her face. Her tablet is set up so that, after her school work and chores are done, she can play on it for an hour before it shuts down. She is also able to earn extra time for having exemplary behavior and doing extra chores around the house, beyond what is expected of her. When it shuts down, she will cry and beg for more time. If we respond ‘no,’ she will have a full-blown meltdown.
Here are a few of my favorites
Could turning off the Wi-Fi after an hour really circumvent her meltdowns? The more I thought about it, the more the idea didn’t sit right with me.
First of all, I would feel like I was being disingenuous. I’ve prided myself on always being as honest as possible when they come to me with things. If I were to shut off the WiFi, then tell them it was an accident, then I would no longer feel like I had the integrity I try to impress on my children that they should have.
On top of that, though this might work with other people’s kids, it will most likely not work with mine. If Lili were watching tv and the power went out, she’d probably still cry about it. She has a really difficult time with transitions and schedule changes. I don’t foresee anything being different if the change came from something outside of my power. She’s also four years old and doesn’t really care who is to blame. She DOES, however, care that she is not currently doing the thing she wanted to do. She has gotten better about this, but she is young and she is not quite there yet.
Finally, I feel like if we pretended everything was an accident, it would do nothing to teach her about boundaries and expectations. Two very important lessons for the preschool age. I try to think for the long term when I’m thinking of how to raise and discipline my children and, though it may be preventing meltdowns in the present, it’s not going to help them in the future. Setting a time limit makes things predictable, it helps her know what to expect. She knows that the time on her tablet is restricted to one hour, and she knows that she can earn more by surpassing expectations, and I feel like these lessons are a lot more important than the possibility that she might not get upset about it in the present (and like I said, I feel like that is a small probability at best).
This is in no way parenting advice. The truth is that his daughter and mine will in all likelihood turn out about the same, all else being equal. However, for me personally, in the long run, I feel that she will benefit more from knowing what her restrictions are, even if she is getting upset about them. And her meltdowns have already decreased in both duration and intensity, even in just the past couple of weeks, so I think we are on the right track.
