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Screen Time - Help Please

Dave

Hi everyone, I'm new here and this is my first post, so apologies in advance if I'm doing this wrong!

I'm hoping to obtain some advice from autistic voices or parents of autistic children. I have an autistic son who is 6 years old and he means the absolute world to me. He's non-verbal and generally he's a happy boy but we are having a bit of a situation at home when it comes to screen time, and I don't want things to get out of hand when it comes to the summer holidays.

My son is becoming increasingly dependant on screen time, whether that be my mobile phone or his tablet. He'll watch the same cartoon intros over and over, or he'll watch YouTube videos of all sorts of things, his favourite nursery rhymes or rollercoasters as an example.

During the week in school he doesn't have a screen at all, but as soon as he gets home from school he demands his tablet. He'll have this for a couple of hours and then it will time out. I'll come home from work and he will basically be ripping my mobile out of my pocket as I'm walking through the door. At weekends we occupy his time as much as possible by taking him to soft plays (he's a very active boy) or for walks, to the park etc. But he's always wanting to get these things over and done with to have his screen time again. 

We are trying absolutely everything we can possibly think of to engage with him in different ways but he doesn't seem interested in anything else, or rather, we haven't yet found the thing that peaks his interests. My wife and I completely understand the need for screens for him to regulate himself, but also we are awaiting ADHD assessment and understand the research suggests screen time can impact his attention span. We are finding it extremely difficult to put any boundaries in place because he gets so upset and it feels like he's being punished, but all we want to do is interact with him and do literally anything else with him.

Are there any parents out there who have had/are having a similar experience? Can anyone offer any advice on how we navigate this? Any thoughts are welcome and truly appreciated. Thank you so much.

Parents
  • Dave said:
    We are finding it extremely difficult to put any boundaries in place because he gets so upset and it feels like he's being punished

    It may help to sit down with him and agree the rules around this. Tell him you will allow him X hours of screen time a day but he will have to follow the rules. 

    Rather than punishing him for exceeding the rules, find ways to enforce them, so set restrictions on your broadband router for the devices he uses and don't allow him to use your personal devices.

    By getting him to agree to the rules it should work in favour of his autistic moral compas and you will need to find other activities for him to do outside of these hours.

    There can be bonus minutes earned from doing chores (to an agreed standard), waking the dog or whatever things you can get him doing that help the rest of the family. By learning the mechanism of earning it will be a useful life skill.

    If events come up and he has to be away from the screen for much longer than normal then allowing him to "bank" the time for later use will be a good tool to help him accept the changes.

    If he becomes anxious and impatiend when doing the task then these are indicatiors of an addictive personality so it may be work considering a child psychologist with autism experience to work with him. It will be important to frame this as helping him make the most of his gifts rather than being treated as faulty.

    Dave said:
    My wife and I completely understand the need for screens for him to regulate himself

    It is great you understand this and I hope you can find other methods of regulation for him.

    These are just my thoughts.

Reply
  • Dave said:
    We are finding it extremely difficult to put any boundaries in place because he gets so upset and it feels like he's being punished

    It may help to sit down with him and agree the rules around this. Tell him you will allow him X hours of screen time a day but he will have to follow the rules. 

    Rather than punishing him for exceeding the rules, find ways to enforce them, so set restrictions on your broadband router for the devices he uses and don't allow him to use your personal devices.

    By getting him to agree to the rules it should work in favour of his autistic moral compas and you will need to find other activities for him to do outside of these hours.

    There can be bonus minutes earned from doing chores (to an agreed standard), waking the dog or whatever things you can get him doing that help the rest of the family. By learning the mechanism of earning it will be a useful life skill.

    If events come up and he has to be away from the screen for much longer than normal then allowing him to "bank" the time for later use will be a good tool to help him accept the changes.

    If he becomes anxious and impatiend when doing the task then these are indicatiors of an addictive personality so it may be work considering a child psychologist with autism experience to work with him. It will be important to frame this as helping him make the most of his gifts rather than being treated as faulty.

    Dave said:
    My wife and I completely understand the need for screens for him to regulate himself

    It is great you understand this and I hope you can find other methods of regulation for him.

    These are just my thoughts.

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