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-   -   Team-BHP style "Infraction System" to manage my kid's smartphone usage (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/239270-team-bhp-style-infraction-system-manage-my-kids-smartphone-usage.html)

The Covid-19 pandemic has rocked our planet like none before. It has literally turned the world upside down. It has thrown challenges of various types at different levels to each and everyone in varying magnitudes. I am going to present a simple yet significant challenge that my family and I have faced and I am pretty sure, a lot of you too have faced/facing the same.

Dealing with or managing school going kids at home is what I am talking about, particularly the 4-6 year olds. My 5 year old son scampered through his first year of schooling without even stepping inside his classroom once. Yes, he was and is 'studying' from home through online classes. I doubt he will ever get a chance to be a kindergarten kid. If making him sit at one place and attend Google Meet classroom sessions was(still is) a challenge, keeping him separated from smartphones posed the biggest challenge.

Rolling back a few months to pre-covid era AKA my son's pre-schooling era. Whenever his mischiefs and tantrums turned hostile, I tried mellowing him down by confiscating his favourite car toys and to my surprise(and everyone's at home), the method starting yeilding desired results! The cars returned to him, whenever the good boy in him showed up. That was a quite a relief. Phew! Thankfully he wasn't too much into smartphones back then. The tablet he had, shattered following a nasty drop on the floor and that was it. Replacement was ruled out then and there itself.

Now, back to covid era. The pandemic brought an abrupt end to my now 10 year-old daughter's 4th grade academic year with a couple of her exams cancelled and an automatic promotion to 5th grade. Attending school taken out of equation, online classes took precedence. 5th grade, CBSE syllabus and you all know what that means. I/we had no other option but spare her a smartphone. Of course, I had installed Google parental control on her phone. At the same time, got my son enrolled to lower kindergarten. Until this point, kids had limited access to smartphones. While his elder sister starting fiddling(studying) with her smartphone, the kid brother was not the one to be left alone. His mom's smartphone was targeted and he succeeded in his mission. Targeting my phone was mission impossible back then and it still is. Initially, we were all happy to see him 'calm and quiet' spending time with smartphone. His Modus Operandi was simple- download/install games, play and play till he gets bored, uninstall- repeat. With parental control activated in my daughter's phone, downloads obviously require my permission. Once I grant permission for a particular game to be downloaded, I have seen that the game requires no permission for repeat downloads. He wouldn't download a lot in my wife's phone due to lack of phone's storage space. After long hours of usage, once the phone battery is left with little or no juice, he would seamlessly switch phones, his mom's with his sister's and vice-versa. As days and weeks rolled over, I realised the ill-effects of him getting 'smart with the phone'. My little fella got so busy, that he almost forgot his favourite toy cars, his kitties, TV shows and everything, except one thing though, his tantrums. I hate saying this, but, with every passing day and week, his gadget addiction grew stronger. He was easily spending 6-8 hours a day with his new found buddy. Unbeknownst to him, he would gaze the phone screen from close quarters and his eyes would turn teary on occasions. Alarm bells started ringing loud and clear in my mind. Me and my wife were really worried would be an understatement. I had to act and act soon.

Then sometime in last December, my TeamBHP membership happened. Among plethora of things on the forum, "infraction system" is one among many others that really caught my senses. I thought long and hard, bingo! The infraction policy for my kid was framed. Every minor offence(read mischiefs, trantrums) of his attracted infraction points. Each point is worth a few minutes of phone usage time. This meant, a minor offence = BAN on mobile usage for few minutes. Major offences and infraction points are directly proportional. Make no mistake, he is a stubborn kid. Initial phases meant he would throw tantrums and wouldn't care much about staying away from his best buddy for a few minutes. This behaviour of his led to long term BANS in the scale of hours and even days. I had not only requested but also warned my wife and parents not to yeild to his 'wild tactics'. The "de-addiction" process for sure had taken wings. God! I tell you, it was equally amusing and painful watching him experience the "withdrawal" symptoms. He would protest, cry, fight with his sister and what not. End result- more infraction points and extended BAN. As days passed, with not much of his tactics working, he just got accustomed to the new system. So much so, that after every offence he committed, he would voluntarily come to me and confirm for himself the extent of his BAN!! :coldsweat

At present, he is allowed only two hours(approx.) of phone usage time per day, equally split between morning and evening sessions. He seems reasonably comfortable with this arrangement. There are days of complete BAN on phone usage as well as rare cheat days. All in all, my wife and I are really relieved with the turn of events. It wasn't easy, neither was it pleasant, a healthy final result nonetheless. I must add, his tantrums have definitely not stopped, but the bigger result has been achieved. Hail, Team BHP infraction system!! clap:

Pretty much the story in most households these days (and prior to Covid as well). Coming from the software industry, we know how scientific techniques are used in gaming to keep people hooked (choice of colours, incentives). Forget kids, I will play games all day if it was an option. The term "Gamification" exists for a reason and the its application in other areas just shows how advanced Games are in keeping people engaged.

In our case, it wasn't only the time spent with device which we realised was the issue. It was the fact that our kid was thinking about the game in the spare time which was of concern. The time which could have been spent getting bored and figuring something out was replaced by techniques on how to proceed in levels in the game. Also I could see the need for faster gratification building in other areas. We had read the articles on this but we could observe it happening.

I feel sorry for the kids, these games are so enticing that it is a losing battle for them. We can control access in early days, it is what will happen later which scares me.

I think child psychologists all over the world will sign up for Team-BHP now, eager to give their expert opinion on short term & long term consequences of your infraction system on the child's psyche.

While controlling his smartphone usage is fine, with the infraction system it feels like you're training him to be a future corporate slave. If I were a kindergarten kid, I would seriously be bouncing off the walls with boredom in these COVID times! So cut him some slack, and if possible, let them go out to play with their friends!

I am guessing the proposed infractions are for parents. Sounds like a good idea.

Agree with you here. My son is hooked to his tablet (games and youtube) most of his waking hours. I tried limiting the time he uses the device, but I am at loss to find alternate tasks to keep him engaged. How long can he just sit there staring at the wall? Wouldn't that be torture? Well, he can't go out and play with friends, he was never interested in conventional toys like cars and dolls and we don't have the time to play kiddie games with him.

It is definitely a difficult situation. I just pray that the pandemic subsides soon enough so that we can get him out to school and parks and malls and beaches. The kid who once always wanted to go to the park now does not want to go out for a drive and that worries me to no end.

I must say you are assuming a lot of things here. I/we have not restricted his play time. By the way, he now enjoys playing with his sister, toy cars, kitties, colouring books, bicycle and kick scooter like he used to earlier. He also spends time roaming around our plantation. Not to mention he now enjoys his TV shows as well.

Cleaning the car over the weekend, I overheard a bunch of young kids (the oldest looked just about double digits old, some younger) and guess what they were discussing animatedly?

Quests on some mobile multiplayer games, and how some of their cellphones had bad graphics and poor screen-on-time (SoT), and how they were pestering their parents to get them better devices. Not judging poor kids stuck indoors for a year+, but that kind of gadget exposure surely can't be healthy?

Even we have the same issue with my 5 year old daughter. She is addicted to Youtube, Netflix, etc and Alexa. Although she cannot search for specific contents using the remote, she has found a work around. She uses voice command to get Alexa play her things.

But when it gets beyond limits, we just hide the alexa remote. For a few days after that she behaves but then its back to square one.

Although I cannot blame her entirely for this. Situation is such that we cannot take her out much. And there is not a lot of things that a 5 year old can do indoors formore than a year.

Just hoping that things get back to normal so that these children can get back their childhood.

Back in the day, I used to pester my dad to get our household desktop computer upgraded to a bigger RAM and better graphics card so that I could play NFS Carbon seamlessly :D Looking back now on most of the time I wasted on games, I feel I should have picked up something else worthwhile. I don't regret playing those games, but still a hobby like playing a musical instrument or painting might be something I could enjoy till my old age.

The pandemic has truly robbed not just school goers but also college kids from enjoying and living the best years. It is not just academics, but the school trips, excursions, all those fun you have with your classmates that truly generates memories of a life time.

What about some brownie points for kiddo being good, well behaved and stuffs like that?
I feel a good behavior should also be appreciated.

Added giving mobile for kids is not healthy as well. My two paisa thought.

Sailing the same boat with my kid (6 years old).

During the first lockdown, screen time was uncontrollable, play with her stuff and scatter them all over the house. The moment kid see that am busy with office work or in a meeting she will switch on the TV. Demanding for something to eat (junk food only) every hour. It was daily home work for me and my wife to clean the house arrange her play materials back (at least 4-6 times a day). That period was like they were in a jail and nothing else to do and cranky all the time with tantrums.

- Infractions did worked with my kid. She has to arrange all the stuff back to their place after playing for the entire week and then she will earn a KinderJoy. If she fails to do twice in a week no KiderJoy. Now we have collection of toys from KinderJoy lol:

- To keep her engaged we used to cook together and make soaps, weekly activity of cleaning my Car, Scooter and her Bicycle. Now this has become a routine. Even if I feel lazy, she will make sure we do the activities

- Introduced her to the concept of saving coins in a piggy bank wherein she will earn weekly based on her activities like completing homework on time, limiting screen time, arranging her toys etc., and voila that worked. Now she is planning to visit Eifel Tower with her money

- Observed her pattern of videos and understood that she is interested in outdoor activities, took a cycle and she managed to learn in couple of months without trainer wheels. Now she is bored of it. So introduced her to Gymnastics again based on the choice of videos she was watching. She is climbing the doorways without any support :Shockked: and doing splits (have to wait and watch how this goes) and she wants me to join her.

This has been a fascinating topic of discussion to me. I think people are slowly losing data processing and comprehending capabilities in choice for instant gratification. Of course, this is true in every generation with the advent of mechanization and simplification, but the recent years are terrifying. People are getting glued screens at all walks of life. Consider these three examples I remember. When I went to service my car last week, one interesting thing I noticed is that all the shop-floor workers finished their lunch in 10 minutes and sat hooked on their mobiles for the next 35 minutes (there's nothing wrong as such as it is their earned break time). Of late, I have not even seen our neighborhood shopkeeper not hooked on to his mobile even once ( any Telugu Bhpians can relate how much nuisance the tv show "Jabardasth" is). A conductor on a TSRTC local bus is half focused on issuing tickets while watching the same show.

Scary thing is People now graduated from phone calls to messaging and now to video calls while driving or walking on roads.

I believe watching videos/ playing games is a good coping mechanism and gives temporary relief to such an extent to kill any aspirations or motivation for hard work. At large, any kind of effort, be it physical or mental, is being demonized systematically by businesses and governments. Oversimplification will kill the imaginative skills and the stretch for excellence in future generations (online education portals are a way to this if not some hybrid model is adopted).

I am happy that the effort by OP is yielding good results. I am also kind of worried when my 13 months old daughter gets glued to the TV during feeding time but forced to cut slack as there's no alternative exposure to her due to the Covid situation.

Obviously! Don't we all do that? Good behaviour is 'always' applauded, appreciated, encouraged and 'occasionally' rewarded.

Remember that to balance things out, an Infraction system should also be paired with a Thanks button as well! ;)

I guess this touches upon the much discussed topic of Negative Reinforcement vs Positive Reinforcement.

I'm sure you've already given this some thought, but maybe come up with some more ideas for attractive alternatives / replacements for the smartphone? (New educational toys, Legos, etc? Though I'm sure he already has several options... )

I can't imagine being a kid (or parent!) in the smartphone era... it's so hard to compete with those devices. I guess a lot of full-grown adults are proof of that too!