I’m going to say it: screens are part of our life. Jack has an iPad, my old MacBook, a gaming console, and yes, he’s got YouTube and Minecraft. And yes, he uses them. A lot.
And like many parents, I carry that low hum of screen time guilt in the back of my mind. The “should I be doing more?” The “am I making it too easy for him to stay entertained?” The “will this ruin his attention span, creativity, and ability to entertain himself when he’s older?”But alongside that guilt sits something else: hope. And a clear-eyed reality check about the world we’re preparing him for.
The World We’re Preparing Him For
We talk about “boredom sparking creativity,” and I agree with that in principle. I grew up with boredom. It made me read, write, invent games, and climb trees until the streetlights came on. But Jack’s generation? Their world is different.
The internet isn’t going away. Screens aren’t going away. If anything, they’re becoming the core tools of communication, creativity, and learning. Banning them or framing them as inherently evil doesn’t prepare him for the world he’s going to step into.
At the same time, I don’t want him to lose that “I’m bored” spark, either. That moment of restless nothingness that leads to pulling out the Uno cards, a game of Hangman, or building the world’s wobbliest Jenga tower (Fortnite edition, obviously).
And in our house, that balance is exactly what we aim for.
Stepping Into His World
Something we’ve chosen to do as parents is step into his world, not just manage it from the edges.
Yes, he plays Fortnite, and yes, it’s technically for older kids. But you know what? We play it with him. He thinks it’s hilarious that I’m the world’s most cautious Fortnite player, sneaking around with epic loadouts, racking up exactly zero eliminations while somehow making it to the final circles. It’s a badge of honour in our house.
He’s played Roblox since he was little, and we’ve managed it by joining him. I’ve let him carry me around Brookhaven, showing me his houses, the outfits he’s designed, and the secrets he’s discovered. He lights up when he gets to be the guide, the expert.
We have accounts ourselves, and we join him, not because gaming is my passion (trust me, I’d rather be on a walk or with a book), but because it matters to him. His world is worth entering, and as an only child, these moments matter.
We keep one ear on his chats with his online friends while we work (no headphones for him during gaming), ensuring we can always hear what’s going on. When he watches a YouTube tutorial and wants to tell us about a new trick or build, we stop and listen. When he wants to demonstrate something, we watch, we cheer, and we let him teach us.
We call him our “resident gamer,” our in-house gaming expert. He knows things about Minecraft and Fortnite I’ll never understand, and I’m glad he does. It gives him ownership, pride, and a role that he loves.
This isn’t everyone’s approach, but it’s ours, and it works for us. It’s how we keep him safe, how we stay connected, and how we remind him that what he loves matters to us, too.
Finding Our Family’s Screen Time Balance
And yet, I know my views on this aren’t shared by everyone. Screen time can feel like an elephant in the room at playdates or dinner gatherings, where we quietly judge ourselves (and sometimes each other) for letting screens occupy our kids. I have friends who firmly limit or outright ban screens, and I respect that. It’s a tricky conversation, with no single “right” answer.
But here’s where I land: our kids are growing up in a screen-based world. Denying them the chance to learn how to use these tools responsibly, creatively, and confidently doesn’t serve them. Instead, it risks turning screens into forbidden fruit, or worse, creating fear around technology that will only become more central in their lives.
The practical reality? Screens give me pockets of time to work, to get dinner on the table, or simply to catch a moment of quiet. And I don’t believe that makes me a bad parent. It makes me a realistic one.
At the same time, I believe in keeping it human. In playing that extra round of Uno. In long, chatty breakfasts with a side of Hangman. In letting boredom happen and seeing where it takes us.
But when Jack wants to chat with ChatGPT about the world’s largest animal or edit a video from his adventure park trip on CapCut, I see a spark of creativity, learning, and problem-solving, too. When he’s building intricate Minecraft worlds or designing a poster on Canva while sitting at my desk, I see the skills he’s going to need in the world ahead.
Letting Go of the Guilt
Parenting isn’t a binary of screens or no screens, boredom or entertainment, digital or analogue. It’s a dance. A constant readjustment between guilt, hope, reality, and practicality.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s about giving ourselves permission to let go of the guilt and see the bigger picture. To trust that we’re raising kids who will know how to find that balance because they saw us trying to find it, too.
Because one day, I hope Jack will look back and remember the mornings we spent playing games, the moments we let him teach us about his world, the times he showed us his latest edit, and how we always made room to listen.
Not despite the screens, but alongside them.
