When Your Family Doesn't Support Your Screen Time Boundaries

Also Available on:

Today's podcast question says: "What do you do when everyone in your family is addicted to tech and welcomes your child into that with little to no restraint? Studies on the effects of screen time do not give them pause around my child, and my spouse is included in this."

This is a really important question for us to think through, and actually this is just one of many questions like this that we have received at Foundation Worldview. Today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast, we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I'm thrilled that you've joined me for this episode today.

Two Important Questions to Consider

As we think through this question, there are actually two different questions here that are really important for us to consider:

First: What to do when extended family members and friends do not uphold your screen time guidelines or boundaries that you have in place for your children.

Second: What to do when you and your spouse disagree about screen time guidelines and boundaries for your children.

We're going to look at those two questions separately because they are two different questions requiring different approaches.

When Extended Family Doesn't Follow Your Guidelines

We have actually had a number of parents write into the Foundation Worldview podcast with this exact question, saying: "When my children are over my parents' house or over my in-laws' house, or when they're with this person or that person, there's just so much screen time that doesn't go along with our boundaries. Should we give some leeway? Should we stick to our guns? What should we do?"

I think that a healthy way to think through this is to:

Enforce the standards that you have set during events that happen regularly, and offer some leeway in situations that are more rare.

When to Enforce Your Standards

Let's think through enforcing standards during events that happen regularly. For example, if your parents come over for dinner two nights a week, this would be a regular event. So I would recommend letting them know what your boundaries are and that you want those boundaries followed.

For instance, if you know your parents are probably going to hand their phones over to your kids when they come to your house, let them know that your kids are not allowed on phones and that you do not want your parents to give them their phones when they're at your house.

Or if your parents like to watch movies in the evenings—again, if they're coming over to your house one or two times a week or you're going over their house—just let them know: "This is a boundary we've set with our kids. We don't want them watching movies every time you come over or every time we're over there." Make sure that's an established boundary and that you stick to it.

If your children are babysat by your brother or your sister or another extended family member or friend once a week, make sure that before you establish that rhythm of them watching your child, that person is willing to stick by the tech guidelines that you have before you let them watch your child.

Now again, this is if it's a regular occurrence. If you're in an emergency situation—let's say your washer breaks and your house is flooded and you need someone to watch your kids last minute so you can get this all cleaned up—this is not the time to sit down and say, "And this is my tech guideline and this is my screen time guideline." It's an emergency situation that's completely different than if you're establishing something that's happening on a weekly basis.

I think it's also really important to enforce your standards when you know that there is potential danger. For example, if you regularly get together with your siblings and you know that your siblings don't have any parental controls on the devices in their house—they let their kids just surf the web, go on any app whatsoever—there's great danger in letting kids on a device that has no parental controls.

The things that they're going to encounter and the high chance that they're going to encounter pornography or other inappropriate and vile content that is dangerous—in those situations where it's a dangerous situation, stick to your guns, stick to your boundaries. "I'm sorry, when we're over your cousin's house, you're not going to be allowed on the tablet or the computer or the phone or anything like that."

So in those situations where it's either an event that's happening regularly or it's a situation where there is definite danger, those are the times to really enforce your standards.

When to Offer Some Leeway

Then there are other times when I think it's okay and maybe even wise to offer some leeway. This would be in situations where it's rare, it's just something out of the ordinary, it's not an everyday occurrence, and a situation where it's not inherently dangerous.

As I was thinking of examples of this, I thought of two examples from my own life. Those of you who are faithful Foundation Worldview podcast listeners know that I'm single, I'm not married, don't have any kids of my own. My background with kids is in the classroom, and then just with nieces, nephews, and friends' kids.

Several years ago I was dating a guy, and we lived in a different state than where my parents lived and where his parents lived. I remember going to visit his parents, and every time we were at his parents' house from the time they got up in the morning to the time they went to bed in the evening, the TV was on. It was just on all of the time.

That's something that personally just drives me up the wall. I don't like having media playing unless you're actively engaged in it. And it wasn't anything bad—it was just Fox News that was on for 16 hours every day. I remember telling him, "Oh my goodness, if we have kids, I don't want them to be at your parents' house. I don't want them to be around the TV being on all the time."

And he was like, "Wait a minute. You and I right now, we live in a different state than my parents. We're not going to be at my parents every week. If we get married and have kids, it would be for Thanksgiving or for Christmas." He's like, "I think that's an exception."

I remember going home and thinking about it and praying about it, and I was like, "You know what? That is an exception." We didn't end up getting married, but if we had ended up getting married and we'd lived close to his parents, that probably would've been a conversation we would've had to have. But in that situation where it was like once or twice a year, it wasn't that big a deal.

I think about my own family growing up—we lived close to a lot of my dad's siblings, and I know that during holidays we would always go to certain siblings' houses and their TV would always be on with holiday movies. That was something that was very different than our home. We were not allowed to have the TV on most of the time. I think we were allowed to watch a half hour of TV a day.

I know that's something that my mom really didn't prefer. However, my mom wasn't like, "Oh, we can't go," or "Oh, you can't look at the TV." She recognized that this was a special occasion, a rare occurrence, and it wasn't going to be something that was going to derail all of the boundaries that she had set up in our home.

When You and Your Spouse Disagree

Now let's look at the second part of this question: what to do when you and your spouse disagree about screen time guidelines and boundaries for your children. This is much more serious because this is going to be an ongoing issue, not just a once-in-a-while situation.

My first recommendation is:

Approach this with a spirit of humility and love, seeking unity rather than just being right.

On our podcast question submission form, people can put their names, and I do happen to know that this question was submitted by a female. So I'm going to speak now specifically to wives in this situation, because I know this question was written by a woman.

My recommendation is to approach your spouse with research. Share what you've learned about screen time and its effects. Say something like: "This is what I think is biblical. This is the research behind it. Please help us to be in agreement." And now you can pray for your spouse's heart to change.

I would also encourage you to pray that your heart would be humble in this, because you may very well have the wiser opinion between you and your spouse. However, entering into this with a haughty attitude or an "it's my way or the highway" kind of attitude is not going to be honoring to God. It's not going to be healthy for your marriage, and it is definitely not going to be changing your spouse's heart on this.

So just go before the Lord and pray that He would bring you and your spouse to a place of agreement over this. I also recommend that you pray that you would have a humble heart, that God would humble your heart over this.

Now again, I'm not married. I don't have kids. I don't know how hard this is experientially when you and your spouse are disagreeing over something serious like this. But I do know that God has called for us to be humble and to love one another.

If this is a situation where you've prayed about it, you've prayed for God to work in your heart, you've prayed for God to work in your spouse's heart, and you and your spouse need to have a conversation about this, I recommend that you approach your spouse with a spirit of humility and a desire to work together. This means that your exact standards might not be the ones that you both come to an agreement on.

Don't approach it with accusations like, "I can't believe that you let the kids watch this," or "It bothers me that you always have tablets on," or "You're always on your phone." Approach it with humility, saying something like: "I'm worried about how much screen time is affecting our kids' hearts and minds. Would you be open to talking through some different guidelines that we can put in place to protect them?"

Hopefully your spouse would say, "Yes, I would like to talk through these things," but even if your spouse says no, that this is something that you can trust the Lord with.

Biblical Guidelines for Wives

If you and your husband are not on the same page about screen time guidelines, so long as there is no clear sin involved from the biblical perspective, it is your job to submit to your husband's decision.

Now, I said "if there is no sin involved." An example of sin being involved would be if your husband is allowing your children to watch pornographic content. That is just flat out sinful—we are called to live lives that are sexually pure, that are sexually faithful. So that would exclude all pornographic content.

If your husband is allowing your child to watch pornographic content, it is your job to uphold God's word. You're not just going to say, "Okay, well, I'm submitting to you in this." No, this is sin. We are not allowing our children to do this, and you need to clearly confront that.

However, in most cases, when we're thinking about the amount of screen time that is allowed, it's probably not a direct violation of God's command. So in those many situations where it's not a direct violation of God's commands, it's your job to submit to what your husband has determined is best for your children and to pray.

Now again, I know that it is very easy for me as a single female to sit here and say, "You need to submit to what your husband said." However, even though I do not have personal experience with this, this is not my opinion. This is coming straight from God's word in Ephesians chapter five, where God directly instructs wives to submit to their husbands.

This does not involve submission when sin is involved. When sin is involved, you stick firmly to what God has said in His word, and you guide your children in that as well. But in cases when there is not directly sin involved, biblically speaking, it is your job to submit to your husband.

God's Faithfulness in Difficult Situations

I have watched friends do this and I have seen God honor those decisions. Now, it hasn't always been easy. I have a friend where she and her husband disagreed over the age at which their children should get cell phones, and their daughter was given a cell phone years before the mom wanted her to be given the cell phone.

The mom expressed her concerns to her husband. She let her husband know why she thought this was a bad idea, but in the end, she submitted to what her husband decided. Now that ended up being a really terrible decision—their daughter got in all kinds of trouble because of that.

All throughout, the mom had just been praying that God would soften her husband's heart, that God would protect their daughter, and God was gracious. When their daughter did get in all sorts of trouble, my friend and her husband were on the same page about what needed to be done. The husband apologized, said, "You were right in what you said about the cell phone." He took the cell phone away, and then my friend and her husband were on the same page about what they needed to do to help their daughter get out of all the trouble that she had gotten herself into.

I had another friend where there was something involving screens where she and her husband were just not on the same page. She kept nagging him about it and nagging him about it, and she learned that it wasn't working. Then she read in Ephesians five and was convicted that it wasn't her job to nag her husband because there wasn't direct sin involved. It wasn't her job to keep going to him with this. She just needed to pray for him.

So she just prayed for him consistently—that she would love him, that she would submit to him, that God would work in his heart, that God would work in her heart. And one day her husband came to her and was like, "You know what? I was reading in Scripture and I realized that what I'm doing here was not wise."

She told me she almost fell out of her chair because this is what she had been telling her husband for over a year. But she went to the Lord with it and God worked in his heart in a way that she never could.

Now, this doesn't happen every time. It's not a guaranteed promise that when we follow the commands of God that everything is going to turn out fine. But we need to be faithful in obeying what God has commanded each of us to do and trusting Him with the results when we move forward in obedience.

Moving Forward with Wisdom and Faith

Whether you're dealing with extended family who don't respect your boundaries or a spouse who disagrees with your approach to screen time, remember that God cares deeply about your children and your family. He sees your heart and your desire to protect and guide your children well.

Continue to ground your decisions in Scripture, seek wisdom through research and counsel, and trust that God is working all things together for your good and the good of your children, even when the path forward isn't clear or easy.

Ready to dive deeper into biblical worldview training for your children?

If this episode has been helpful to you, I encourage you to explore Foundation Worldview's comprehensive curriculum designed to equip children to think biblically about every area of life. Our materials provide you with the tools and confidence you need to guide meaningful conversations with your children about difficult topics, including technology, media, and cultural influences.

Don't miss future episodes and resources! Subscribe to our email list to receive practical tips, biblical insights, and new curriculum updates delivered right to your inbox. You'll get immediate access to exclusive content that will help you continue this important work of worldview formation in your home.

If you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that question by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children that God has placed in your care find yourselves, you would trust that God is working all things together for your good.