Right now I currently only watch on 11 yr old after school and summers/school breaks (she's been with me since she was 15 months old, so she's like my own). Our daily routine after she gets off the bus is settle in/put things away, eat snack (sometimes I let her help make snack, like muffins for example), then I have a time set aside for her to do her homework and if she doesn't have homework I have 30 minutes of another beneficial activity that she has to do before any tablet time (she wants to play on her tablet the whole time). One day I'll have her do 30 minutes of reading a book of her choice, another day it might be drawing/coloring (she likes this but still complains because she wants on her tablet), or doing something creative (art, craft, building something, etc). On the days she reads she complains, tries to argue, wastes time getting started, gets an attitude with me etc. I feel like reading is very important for kids and I know she doesn't read while at home. But she gives me SUCH a hard time about it and has been complaining to her mom about it who sympathizes with her I'm thinking (but who knows what the girl is telling her mom. She's known to really stretch the truth, although her mom doesn't seem to realize it). Would you continue to enforce a 30 minute reading time, on reading days, before allowing tablet time when she has no homework (she does it at school last period), or would you let it go knowing her parents don't care if she reads or not? I limit screen time for my own young kids (ages 2 1/2 and 19 months) as well so it goes against my teacher heart to allow so much tablet time and no reading time but I don't want her parents to pull her out either. I've been her caregiver for SO long now. I don't know that they would pull her out over this, but she seemed to go through providers quickly (Due to her constant complaints) during the time I was not living near enough to watch her myself. Im okay with a few minutes of tablet use and I have been giving her 30-45 minutes on it at the end of the day before her mom picks her up. I've mentioned the tablet use to her mom and she doesn't want her to be on it the whole time either, but I don't think she realizes the reading and other activities are so she has something beneficial to do before getting on her tablet. It would be hard to talk to her mom about it because I don't know exactly what the girl is saying or what her mom is thinking since she hasnt mentioned anything to me about it.
I hope I made sense of this 😆

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