How to Control Screen Time in Your Home and the Perfect Tool To Do It
If parenting, homeschooling, and adulting in general wasn’t enough to juggle, let’s throw in controlling screen time to round things out, shall we?! Controlling screen time is always such a difficult thing to navigate. We all do it a little differently and we all know how hard it is to control in our own lives, let alone in our kids’ lives!
Today I want to share with you a few things around this topic. First, what the screen time rules are in our house and how we’ve handled phones and screens. I also want to share why I think it’s important that we do have a gauge on what screen time looks like in our homes. And lastly, I’m sharing a tool that I think could be very helpful in getting a handle on the screen time in your home.
Comcast has compensated me for this review. All opinions are my own.
Learning Well LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links from Amazon or other programs are used on this website. For more info, please refer to our disclosure statement.
Why Should We Care About Controlling Screen Time In Our Homes?
As with most things worth doing, controlling screen time in our homes is hard! Why should we do it? For me, it’s many things.
Our screens are masterfully designed to suck us in. They’re design to give our brains big kicks of dopamine, and keep us on them constantly. One quick observation out in public and you can see it’s worked quite well. Everyone is on their phones. Walking their dogs, driving their cars, having lunch with their kids…they’re all on phones!
I’m guilty as well. But this is something I am intentional about, especially when my kids are watching. I don’t want to show them that my phone is more riveting than the story they’re trying to tell me. I want them to remember what my face looked like while I was mothering them…not the top of my head looking down at my phone.
Besides this, the garbage you can find with the flick of a finger is just staggering. Pornography, chat groups dedicated to glorifying suicide, bullying and so much more–no thanks!
When I am on my screen too much, or when I have allowed my kids too much screen time, I don’t like the people I see–including myself! We are more short-tempered, impatient with one another, and unmotivated! No thanks to that too!
Controlling Screen Time In Our Home
I have had a dislike for screens from the beginning of my parenting life. I quickly found too much TV zapped my son’s imagination. So here are a few screen rules we have in our home. Some of these are staples and some are more moveable and adaptable depending on the child.
- No screens behind closed doors–no charging phones in bedrooms, no TV in bedrooms, etc
- We wait till our kids are 14 to get a phone
- Now that “dumb” phones are more accessible, like the Gab phone, we will be using these for our teens
- We don’t allow social media till age 18 (and my oldest still does not have it even though he’s 19 because he’s chosen not to)
- We set time limits on phones, iPads, TV
What Is Comcast Xfinity?
I get it. It’s easier said than done when it comes to screen time, right? But how do we actually get to the action of controlling screen time in our homes?
This is where Comcast Xfinity comes in.
Xfinity xFi, is a Wi-Fi platform created by Comcast to allow customers to personalize their Wi-Fi experience in the home.
So what does this look like? The platform provides an easy-to-use digital dashboard for customers to set up their home Wi-Fi network, find their password, see what devices are connected, troubleshoot issues, and set parental controls.
It even allows you to pause Wi-Fi access during dinner or bedtime or other time that fits your family’s needs.
If I want to make sure a child does not get on their device between a certain time, I can do that. If I want certain times in our day to be wifi-free, I can do that! Or if I want to set limits on certain devices and not others, I can do that too.
Xfinity xFi checks all the boxes as it is easy to use and allows you to retain control over an area that is sometimes hard to manage.
Make Controlling Screen Time Easier With Xfinity xFi
In 2017 Comcast launched Xfinity xFi to be able to give customers unprecedented visibility, control, and protection of the most important technologies in their lives – with the fastest speeds, the best coverage, and ultimate in-home control.
It gives consumers visibility into all the devices connected to their home Wi-Fi network. It allows them to organize, monitor, and personalize their experience and set up parental controls to automate screen time rules in the house.
Xfinity Xfi does this by providing a simple digital dashboard for customers to set up their home Wi-Fi network, find their password, see what devices are connected, troubleshoot issues, set parental controls, and even pause Wi-Fi access during dinner or bedtime.
Additionally, Xfinity xFi Advanced Security is free for all xFi customers. It monitors, blocks, and informs customers of online threats to connected devices and provides seamless digital protection for those devices when connected to their home network.
People want to connect and control the products and devices in their home quickly and easily, and xFi gives people a simple, easy-to-use digital dashboard for their connected life. Xfinity xFi adds value for customers, addresses common Wi-Fi pain points, and vastly improves the way millions of people interact with their home network.
A Necessary Evil?
The internet may be an necessary evil in our daily lives, but there have been many good things that have come from it. It’s a part of our lives we can’t completely avoid. So healthy boundaries are a good thing here!
Set limits on screens. Don’t glorify the internet or become obsessed. And teach your kids healthy habits!