“Care and Feeding” is Slate’s parenting advice column. Do you have a question about care and feeding? Send it here.
Dear care and feeding,
I am a stay-at-home mom and mom to a 19-month-old boy. Although my husband and I believe a little electronic contact is OK, we try to limit our son’s screen time. For cultural reasons, I live with my in-laws. Both the grandmother and grandfather whip out their phones as soon as my son approaches them. They let him watch videos on YouTube for hours and call it spending time with him. My husband and I have tried to explain to them, sometimes gently, sometimes firmly, that it is necessary to limit our son’s screen time. They ignore all of our arguments and even offer him screens during mealtimes when he is happy, upset, or whatever. It has become such a problem that I feel like I have no control over my child’s parenting.
— Frustrated with phones
Dear Frustrated,
You need to educate your in-laws about the dangers of screen time in a way that resonates with them. I’m sure they wouldn’t smoke in the same room as your son or drive him around without a car seat. If they’re YouTube fans, have them search for “effects of screen time on children” there. They’ll learn about dopamine production, increased stress levels, worrisome potential problems with brain development, and more. If they prefer reading, try sending them information from the Mayo Clinic or the American Psychological Association.
You and your husband need to do everything in your power to convince your in-laws that they are actively harming your child. If they don’t listen, get an expert involved (kindergarten teacher, pediatrician, etc.). Treat the uncontrolled screen time for what it is. If you saw them blowing smoke in your son’s face, you would take him out of the room. You should realize pretty quickly how serious you are about this.
I agree with you that a little time is OK. Screens should not be banned entirely. (The World Health Organization, for example, recommends limiting screen time to one hour a day for a 1-2 year old child, noting “less is better”). Screens are useful in difficult moments when you want to keep your child occupied while you do something else. But it should be quick and the content they consume should be for their age group. It shouldn’t be just any old YouTube article.
It won’t be easy to break your in-laws’ behavior patterns, you’ll have to keep being firm. Parenting (and grandparenting) without screens will take more work. Try offering them age-appropriate toys or activities they can do with your child to replace the phone. It might be a little easier for everyone if you offer them a stack of books to read instead. You could even task them with picking out some titles from the bookstore or library themselves so they have some level of control. But I won’t sugarcoat it: This is going to be hard.
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Dear care and feeding,
We are a family with two little ones (2 and 4) living in Australia. They don’t have any cousins and our close friends don’t have any kids. It’s been difficult to find parents we really get on well with and who have a similar parenting style. How do you find parent friends?
—Parenting Friends
Dear parent friends,
It’s not easy to make friends with parents, and it’s even harder to find parents who have a similar parenting style and who you get along with. Personally, I’ve found that two things help foster new parent friendships: proximity and repetition.
Visit the playgrounds and play areas in your area and try to strike up a conversation with other parents. Meeting other parents who live nearby will break down the geographical barrier between your friendship.
If your children attend organized activities or daycare, that’s also a good place to start. These are recurring events where you know you’ll see the same people every week/day and can build a relationship.
It’s also worth asking yourself why you want to have friends who are parents in the first place. If you’re the first in your circle of friends to have kids, you might be looking for empathetic people who understand the sheer chaos that is 2 and 4 year olds. Or are you really looking for playmates for your kids so you don’t have to spend 100 percent of your time dealing with them? What you have in mind when you think of “parent friends” might be an idyllic image where the adults get along just fine and drink wine while the kids play peacefully and everyone stays in touch for decades to come. But a friendship doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable, and figuring out your top priority here can help you broaden your search.
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Dear care and feeding,
I have a 5-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter. My daughter is quite reserved and is an attentive, sensitive and friendly child. My son is very silly (he likes to repeat things to get attention), can be very stubborn (he has difficulty sharing things) and is very talkative and emotional. He is fixated and tends to look for reasons for everything we do. In short, he is a big challenge for everyone in the family, including my partner and his father.
I’m increasingly concerned about how his behavior is affecting my daughter. She’s pretty stoic about his outbursts and general vehemence (trying to tell her what to do, telling her the fantasy creatures she likes aren’t real, interrupting her/slamming her/talking her over, etc.). His dad and I don’t let him behave like this freely, for his sake or hers. But she’s been more open about her brother’s “naughtiness” lately, about how much emotional space he takes up so often and how difficult he can be to get along with. I understand that – it’s very hard for me too. I try to pass the consequences on to him, although sometimes we have to leave a fun activity because of his behavior (and then I talk to my daughter about it and affirm her as a considerate, kind sister – then I take her out for one-on-one time or something similar).
How much of this is normal and how do I create a safe environment for both of them to grow up in? Is it part of my job to help her understand that she will have to live with some of her brother’s behavior as long as she is close to him? I don’t want to go down the path of dismissing his behavior on flimsy grounds (e.g., “boys will be boys”), but he is not completely controllable.
– Confused Mom
Darling Confused:
Your first question is simple: This is normal. When I think of the dozens of parents I know who have two children, 90 percent of them have this pattern. Of course, the age difference will always make the younger child seem wilder by comparison, and in your family, a lot of maturation takes place during this year as children reach ages 5 and 6. But younger siblings also need to do something to set themselves apart from older, more mature siblings, and by misbehaving and being naughty, they get the attention they crave. Your son may be an extreme case of this attention-seeking behavior. It should lessen as he gets older. If his behavior doesn’t improve, you may want to speak to your pediatrician about a diagnosis as a precaution.
As for how to actually handle this now, it sounds like you’re doing everything right. The balance you need to find is to make your daughter understand how much you appreciate her stoic attitude without sowing contempt for her brother. Giving your daughter time alone is a great reward for having suffered through her brother’s behavior.
What I didn’t get from your question was how your son is dealing with all of this. Does he understand that his behavior has consequences? Be sure to give him positive reinforcement when he goes through a phase of more reserved behavior.
—Greg
More advice from Slate
My mother is a woman who lives by the motto “do it this way or nothing” and is outraged by any suggestion that she might be improving. I recently had my first child (her third grandchild). She is very close to my brother, which she and I are not, and he relies heavily on her for childcare, which is mostly done at her house, where she and my dad both smoke. She also feeds my nephews tons of ready meals, leaves the TV on all day for them, and gives them the iPad whenever they want. I would love to let her be a part of my daughter’s life, but how do I keep my boundaries?
