Wednesday, January 12, 2000
One family's rules for kids' 'screen time'
Susan Vogt, director of Family Ministry for the Diocese of Covington and mother of four, ages 14-25, shares her family's strategies for monitoring media:
1. Total “screen time” a day per person is 11/2 hours. “We used to say one hour of TV, but as the kids got older and started playing video games more and using the computer for entertainment, we negotiated this new rule which includes anything you watch on a screen at home.” (Exceptions are made for special occasions, illness and truly educational games. News magazines do not count as educational TV).
2. No TVs or computers in chil dren's bedrooms.
3. The computer is in the dining room, so it is easy to notice what it's being used for.
4. Cyber Patrol, software that allows parents to block undesirable Internet sites, is on the computer.
5. In regard to Internet use, the Vogts limit online time.
“We only have one phone line (and my husband works out of our home) so we have strict limits on how much the phone can be tied up. Our policy is no longer than 15 minutes on line at a time (this is long enough to check and send e-mail) until 10 p.m.
After that time, it is unlikely that anyone would be calling in so time is unlimited. Call waiting, caller ID, voice mail, and fax allow us to get though if someone is on the phone, but it doesn't break into the Internet, so that's why we have that restriction.”
6. For videos and video games, the policy is no realistic, fantasy, symbolic, historic or futuristic violence is tolerated.
7. No cable. “I know some feel cable is a good alternative to some of the trash currently on network TV, and that is probably true if you carefully choose options, but we felt with only 11/2 hours a day, we really didn't need more choices to tempt us.”
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