Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
One-week family screen use audit
Most parents guess their children's screen time and guess low, because the minutes hide in breakfast cartoons, the car, a sibling's tablet and the last half hour before sleep. Writing down a normal school week, including your own phone use, gives the real starting numbers and shows which moments cause the friction, so the rules you write fix actual problems.
First tasks
- Create a simple log with columns for child, device, time, activity and mood after
- Turn on the built-in screen time report on every phone and tablet
- Log every screen session for seven days, including the car and other homes
- Write down the three daily moments when screens cause the most arguments
Inventory of every device and account in the house
Rules fall apart when there is a forgotten old tablet in a drawer, a games console logged in to a parent's account or a smart TV nobody set limits on. A single list of every screen, who uses it, which account it runs on and what controls it has is the map every later project depends on.
First tasks
- Walk round the house and list every device with a screen or a voice assistant
- Note which account each device signs in with and who uses it most
- Mark every device that has no time limits or child account yet
- Add new devices and remove retired ones from the list @recurring(yearly)
Agreeing why your family has screen rules
Children push hardest on rules they think are arbitrary, and "because I said so" stops working at about eight. Agreeing three or four reasons as parents, such as sleep, time outdoors, conversation at meals and keeping homework done, gives every rule a reason you can explain in a sentence and lets you judge new devices against the same test.
First tasks
- Write your own three worries and three benefits about the children's screens
- Swap lists with your partner or co-parent and find the overlap
- Agree three or four reasons and phrase each in one short sentence
- Rewrite the reasons in words your youngest child would understand
