The leisure days of summer are over and that means buckling down for the school year. From homework to after school activities, you child has many more commitments now. And this means less time spent on their electronic devices, including a cell phone.
This change in pace can be a dramatic one for any child. To help your child adapt to a faster paced day, it is necessary to put limitations on phone time. These restrictions may include times of the day when the cell phone can be used, of course banning school hours. Most schools have a ban on students carrying and using cell phones during the day. However, this may not be actively enforced. As a parent, you can monitor your child’s cell phone use, for the times of usage to ensure that your child is in fact not using the phone during the school day.
You may also want to put a limit on the number of minutes your child can spend on the phone and the number of texts for any given period of time. While your child may try to delete texts or calls on their phone to make it appear that they are not using it as much, this can easily be tracked through the phone. A text message-tracking software, like TxtWatcher, can help you to enforce this usage limitation.
It is also a good idea to limit the hours of cell phone use during the school year. For example, the phone is not used before 9:00 am and is turned off after 7:00 pm, or whatever range best suits your household.
Limiting cell phone use until your child’s homework is done is a great way to ensure that they are learning in an environment free of distractions. It is also a great motivator for your child to get homework completed and out of the way sooner.
You may also want to restrict cell phone use during meal times. Dinner time is a big one. Even if you don’t necessarily have a sit down dinner as a family, it is great to teach your child early on that dinner time is not appropriate for electronics at the table.
After the lax rules of the summer you may meet some resistance from your child. As you fall into a schedule, and your child becomes accustomed to these new cell phone limitations, this will get easier. It is important to be consistent when and where you limit your child’s cell phone use. This will make more sense to your child, as they adjust to these rules.