I woke up at 4am this morning with a tight stomach and fried nerves. It took me a minute to register that this wasn’t normal and to identify what the issue was. Could it have been a bad dream? Was it just my emotions of late becoming more physical? NO. It was the blaring sounds of someone hooting and hollering on Youtube blasting from one of my kids room.
You see, my oldest hasn’t been home in a week so the younger ones have been rotating sleeping in her room. I guess it goes whoever gets there first. And, I have been sleeping on the couch because I’ve been so restless and not wanting to disturb my partner. Normally, my oldest doesn’t sleep with her tv on but my middle child insists on it. So due to the way the rooms are arranged I could easily hear the tv in that room while I slept. The TV was blasting!
As it stands, I can’t stand for the volume of anything to be too loud, the tv, the radio, etc. etc. So, I always wonder how she sleeps through the night with so much noise going on. But, as I frantically searched for the remote to turn her tv off, I wondered how in the world does she feel with so much noise going on. My stomach took almost an hour to loosen up and relax. My nervous system felt completely fried, I was agitated and on edge. All from a Youtube video?
That got me wondering about screen time? Is it really as bad as a lot of parents claim? Am I allowing my kids to be exposed to too much and how is it truly effecting them?
It’s not just annoying, it’s impactful
I don’t watch every second of YouTube that my kids watch but, I do keep my ears open for inappropriate things. Truthfully, most the stuff they watch or listen to are more annoying than anything else. You know what I’m talking about, the sounds of people “talking” that isn’t talking at all. The youtubers who play chaotic games and totally over react so you get really random screaming. Without realizing it, these things are causing stress, discomfort and even a little tension. The issue is that we’ve been accustom to it through our continued exposure.
Our kids probably feel the same way and can’t even identify that they’re stomach is in literal knots because of their exposure. The feeling could at this point just be normal to them. Honestly, as a parent when I think about it I wonder if my kids nerves are fried too. Is this why bed time is a struggle? Why they can’t ever seem to settle down and simply relax?
What I thought was just annoying is now seems more impactful than I could have imagined.
Limit screentime or let it go completely?
You might not think I’m serious but, waking up to that feeling was a huge eye-opener for me. Not being able to relax my body and feeling my stomach so tightly knotted up let me know something had to change! So, the question is do I limit screen time or completely shut it down? Do I monitor more, restrict certain channels?
To be honest, maybe I’m using the term screentime too broadly. What I’m really talking about is YouTube. There are really awesome apps and websites available to kids that aren’t melting their intestines and turning their brains to mush.
I guess I have to take the time to figure out what works for my family. I’m comfortable with screentime when it isn’t Youtube. What they watch and do doesn’t always have to be educational but, I’m okay with ABCMouse, I’m okay with a few cartoons and movies on Hulu and Netflix. There’s definitely adjusting I have to do because my kids are too young for regularly being exposed to something that’s triggering negative physical effects and possibly emotional too. Plain and simple, they are absorbing chaos. To take it a step further adults are absorbing chaos too. We think people are loosing their minds more often lately and really we’re all just being exposed to chaos and it’s started to show.
Anyways, I don’t have all the answers. I haven’t studied anything, I haven’t even looked into it too much before. The only thing I know is that YouTube for my kids might have to get the boot! For sure, they absolutely can not sleep with the TV on anymore (which I heard was linked to dementia).
That’s it for day 13 of Blogtober! It’s 7:08am so you know it’s serious that I talk about that. lol.
Anyways, don’t forget to keep following along, talk soon!