One more video
You said two videos. The second one has finished and the next one has already started.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Told to stop
A grown-up says time is up. You are in the middle of a game and you will lose your place.
What helps?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Videos keep playing. Games always have one more level. That is on purpose — somebody built it that way.
It is not just you
Grown-ups find it hard to stop too. It is not because you are bad at stopping.
Decide before you start
Say how long, or how many, before you begin. Deciding in the middle is much harder.
Step 3: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
When is the best time to decide how long you will watch?
Step 4: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Say the number first
- Before your next screen time, say how many or how long.
- Say it out loud to somebody.
- Stop at the number.
Why: Saying it to somebody else makes it much easier to keep than deciding it in your head.
Step 5: What You Learned
- Screens are built so they never end.
- Everybody finds stopping hard.
- Decide how long before you start.
For the grown-up
Telling a child they lack self-control when the product is designed to remove stopping points is unfair and unhelpful. Naming the design honestly gets much better cooperation than framing it as their weakness.
A pre-agreed stopping point set by the child works far better than an adult ending it mid-flow. The transition, not the amount, is where most conflict lives.
A warning a few minutes ahead helps enormously, because it lets them find the end of something rather than being cut off in the middle.