DECIDING on whether or not to restrict your children’s screen time is something of a modern parenting minefield. But what happens when you enforce those rules on EVERY child who enters your home?
Blogger and mum-of-three Glennon Doyle, 41, has revealed she asks all her children’s friends to ditch their devices at the door to encourage them to actually “talk to each other” when they’re hanging out.
Sharing a photo of a basket full of mobile phones with her 514,000 Instagram followers, the mum wrote: “I love my kids’ friends so much that I want them to talk to each other at our house.
“So Abby and I have them check their phones at the door. Which we can do cause we’re the bosses of this house.”
But while you might expect that this would cause the young house guests to descend into full-on tantrum mode, Glennon – who runs the blog Momastery – insists that the opposite is true.
After initially acting “exasperated”, the mum says each of the children “seem interestingly relieved” by her controversial parenting rule.
She added: “After a minute, they look at each other. And talk. And dance and laugh and stuff.
“And remember that they are with their friends so there is no need to be anywhere else.”
Racking up over 60,000 likes in just two days, plenty of fellow parents took to the comments and revealed they’d be implementing Glennon’s rule in their own homes.
One replied: “Every parent should do this! [The kids] are relieved, there is so much pressure to be connected all the time.
“Great that you have given them back this gift of a REAL connection.”
glennondoyle/Instagram
However, not everyone was so supportive of Glennon’s approach to technology.
Highlighting how it could make parents uncomfortable, one said: “The thought of my daughter having any barriers to reach me when she’s at someone else’s house scares me.”
Meanwhile, another wrote: “Just a reminder, some kids find comfort in their phone. For some kids with anxiety, it takes courage to hang out at friend’s houses and having their phone is a source of comfort.
“So let’s not all jump on the leave the phone at the door bandwagon.”
Commenting on how phones often make things MORE fun, one replied: “Why does it matter if they have their phones or not?
“Some of the best fun is made with a phone in hand.”
In more parenting news, Good Morning Britain viewers have blasted the “cruel” mum who is raising her baby VEGAN.
And Piers Morgan has called a gender-neutral family “utterly ridiculous” for raising their one-year-old baby as a “theyby in a heated GMB debate.
Plus Kirstie Allsopp has slammed homework as a “waste of time” and says not banning her children from doing it is her “greatest regret”,
