Screen Time Restriction and Quality Family Movie Time

As Parents we don’t get to watch much other than kids movies and since we cut screen time in our house drastically, I even see less these days. As a movie enthusiast it really blows to miss out on the latest movies and series… as in seriously, before we had kids I could binge watch series for days. 

I was a walking-sometimes-talking-zombie but I was always on top of it. I was addicted to losing myself in this pretend world where I would never be able to be in real life.

It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing, it’s just that you have to come back to reality more than not. Screen time really changes a person’s state of mind.

When you are losing yourself in that world you don’t exist in, you get agitated when someone breaks the lifeline by talking to you. You have to tear yourself away and get your whole thought process in a different direction, just to try and get yourself into the movie again after. Then after the movie finished, you sort of dwell in limbo, somewhere between the movie and real life and find yourself unable to focus on simple everyday tasks. The movie sticks and now everyone constantly interrupts this limbo by trying to interact with you.

You see where this can become a problem for kids? Kids are even more imaginative and are just learning how to focus. This constant instant gratification, followed by constant interruption of your zombie state of mind can change a personality if it follows a repetitive pattern.

That’s the reason we cut down on screen time. I can make a direct connection between the twins’ mood and how much screen time they have had that day. I know it because I see it in myself! Don’t think we’ve got it down all the time though… sometimes I really need an hour or so extra and if its at a time they are particularly done with all the other tricks I had up my sleeve I sometimes just give in and just put something on the DVD player, but never just a channel on TV at home.

Channels on the TV are really time stealers and you have no control over the content you are allowing your child to watch. For that very reason we don’t even have regular TV and keep it to DVD’s at home. They can however watch channels on TV when they are at their grandparents’ home but that’s really just every once in a while.

Often though, even at home, we fall in a bad habit too and have to remind ourselves to limit screen time once again.

Still I value a good movie and find that it’s much more appreciated in family time, when we can all sit down and watch a good family movie together.

I don’t just watch movies. When I watch a movie, even though I get lost in the pretend world, it comes naturally to me to respectively notice the sound score, the plot line, the visual effects, acting, quality of camera’s used, wether the sound and visuals were properly mixed and graded, wether the script was well written and the actors interpreted it the right way or wether they presented it the right way.

It’s not that I try to look out for these things, I just notice it. Naturally I always imagine myself reviewing these movies in some kind of column, because I always feel the need to let people know wether it was a good movie or not. It’s a blessing… and a curse, like Monk always used to say.

Since this is a Kids and Parenting Blog, I think it’s appropriate to add a section to share reviews with you (under this Movie Review Label at the top) as I make good finds along the way so watch this space!