Sharing your holidays with family or friends is not always easy. The values and ways of doing it are not always the same. But when there are children, pressure is still going up with a notch. Our rules will be followed in grandparents or cousins? Especially if we leave the “loulous” in keeping a few days. But a point seems to crystallize the tensions. Prohibit, screens to the youngest, the rest of the family does not always hear this ear.
Rules that we sometimes impose on others
In a testimony to France Info, David claims to have had bitter experience. During a summer lunch with the family, he discovered that his father installed his young son in front of a car program on television, despite a clear instructions not to do it. The scene degenerates: argument in the kitchen, tensions between generations … “Since then, we haven’t seen each other, only called to try to appease the situation”he says.
This type of scenario is far from isolated. The debate around screens for young children divides deeply, even among the experts. While five learned companies recommended last April from prohibiting any screen before 6 years old, the Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin, announced her intention to ban their use between 0 and 3 years old. The harmful effects on sleep, attention and physical activity are well documented. However, faced with a lack of clarity and decline in the long term, each family adopts their own rules … and sometimes imposes them on others.
High tension holidays because of the screens
“We frequently see that this causes conflicts, mainly with grandparents or between spouses”observes Samuel Fillle, psychologist and deputy director of the E-Enfance association at the media. And the holidays, far from eating tensions, tend to exacerbate them. Children spend more time with their grandparents, their cousins, in environments where the rules vary. A tablet on the table, a cartoon at breakfast … and the argument is never far away.
For psychologist Amélie Boukhobza, this subject has even become a real point of tension in families: “I hear it all the time in consultation. Worse than candy or bedtime: screens! “
Hold on … or let go?
The question therefore comes back insistently: should we impose its rules at all costs, even on vacation? Or accept a certain flexibility?
“”It all depends on who is there “Slice Amélie Boukhobza, who knows in advance that her answer will not suit everyone. “”When you are with your children, it is our rules that apply. But when they are entrusted to their grandparents or other family members, it must be accepted that it is not exactly the same. They are not providers: it is the family, with their ways of doing things, their tolerances, and sometimes their excesses. “
An in addition to Mamie’s more screen time does not mean the end of the world, she says. “Children know how to adapt perfectly to different contexts and reintegrate parental rules once it is returned, even if it sometimes requires a small reframing.”
Which the most harms: the conflict, not the screen
What the psychologist emphasizes is that the real danger does not only lie in screens … but in the tensions they cause between adults. “What damages the most is not so much the screens. It is especially the conflicts around the screens”, she insists.
Rather than trying to control everything, she recommends placing benchmarks, explaining her point of view calmly, but also accepting that the holidays are not a rigid extension of the rest of the year. And that sometimes, to preserve family ties, a little letting go can do a lot of good.