Recently I was asked how I deal with screen time and technology usage as a mother of young children. I’m definitely not anti screen, though our kids are too young for the question of “Would you give them a phone?” But my rule for tech is simple, one I call The Production Principle: “Produce more than you consume.” It’s easy to measure and remember. And it’s the rule guiding tech usage in our house for everyone, child or adult. If kids are sitting on their phones scrolling social media and consuming memes and slop without your knowledge, that’s not good and probably not very healthy. But if they’re making things, coding, interacting with videos that teach them to build things online and off, that’s generally a positive thing, especially if you’re engaged in these activities with them as a parent. Computers and screens govern so many fields today. By the time my children are teenagers, I imagine screens and code will govern much, much more of the world around us. I don’t plan to hide this from them because I don’t want them to be afraid of the modern world, or to sense that they can’t control their relationship to it. Instilling the Production Principle early changes their relationship with technology. It becomes theirs to master, not a nebulous thing to fear.

Fwiw I am on my phone too much and I get called out all the time by my family. I ask myself this question all the time “Am I producing?” If I’m not, I put the phone down.

The other hack we have for the kids with screens is we don’t use it as a reward. My four year old takes a lot of pride in “not needing the phone” if we go out to dinner. He only gets the phone if he’s acting up, and now associates it with our disapproval or something his baby brother needs to make it through a long meal. An hour in, sometimes I’ll ask “do you need the phone” and he refuses it. He doesn’t crave it because it’s not a reward or something he views as off limits.