Saturday 25 February 2017

What to do with 7yo step-daughter who wants screens all day?


OK, background: My husband's daughter comes to visit us only maybe for a couple of days or a few more once every 6-8 weeks in school holidays. We have two very young (2 and under) living here with us. He speaks to her most nights on the phone and our relationship with her can probably best be described as low positive, low negative. It's difficult to get it that much better than that with such limited time with her.Anyway, we're getting by. However, the last few visits have become really difficult due to one specific problem: at her mom's, she seems to basically spend just about all of her free time either watching TV or playing video games. She told me today she's not keen on toys any more, except Shopkins - which seem more like a 'collect and look at' toy, rather than something you actually play with. Not even Lego.However, we have two very young kids and we're pretty strict about screens. We don't want her to come here and have the TV on in front of our kids, who will want to then watch it too. However, when we don't have the TV on for her, she basically mopes and says she's 'tired', and we offer - do you want to go out? do you want to play with your loom? Do you want to play a game? Do you want to read a book? - and she's just no, no, no. Then you stick the TV on - all fine.It feels like the life she's used to isn't compatible with ours, and I'm not sure how to help her adapt or get used to the days she's with us considering they're so few and far between. It's sad for everyone because she seems to look forward to visiting us and then basically seems really bored and down the whole time, and her Dad is really disappointed by basically how bored she seems, but he doesn't know what to do with her.They're quite different people, and while he plays some games with her (which is kind of their main bonding thing) for an hour after the little kids are in bed, during the day there's nothing else that she seems to want to do, out of the house or in. We've told her she can bring toys from her mum's round here, if there's any she likes to play with. She's got toys here. We offer trips out to the museum, park, walking in the woods, whatever - she's not interested. She likes swimming but we can't do it every time and it only takes up a couple of hours anyway. We tried to do a playdate with another 7yo of a neighbour and she didn't like it and doesn't want to do it again. It's really starting to feel like she's not interested in anything other than screens, which is something that, particularly with our kids around, we are not prepared to compromise on on top of the 1-2 hours a day she might get while the kids are napping/in bed/otherwise distracted.Edit: She does at home seem to have lots of friends at school that she plays typical schoolyard games with and loves seeing. This thread kind of makes her sound really mopey and depressed, but I think she's a fairly normal, happy child. I just think that she's used to screens a lot more than we will allow and doesn't know what to do with herself without them.Any suggestions? We both feel totally stuck. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2llTcfI

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