Everyone sits down, the rules get written, and they apply to the whole house. The content of the plan matters less than the two features that define it: it is explicit, so nobody is improvising at bedtime, and it binds the adults, so it is a rule about the household rather than a rule about being a child. It is the approach most likely to survive a second parent disagreeing, because the disagreement gets had once and written down.
What it asks of you
- Actually sitting down and writing it, which most households never get to
- Living under your own rule, including the part about phones at dinner
- Revisiting it, because a plan written for a five-year-old is wrong for an eight-year-old
Screens are simply not part of the house for the early years — usually until around seven, and the reasoning is developmental rather than about content. The argument is that young children build attention, imagination and boredom tolerance out of unmediated time, and that a screen is not a neutral container for good content but a different kind of hour. It is the only position here with no grey area to manage, which is both its cost and the whole of its appeal.
What it asks of you
- Absorbing every argument, because there is no partial version to fall back on
- A plan for the aeroplane, the waiting room and the illness — the three places it breaks
- Standing apart from every other household your child visits
- Adults who mostly follow it too, or the child learns the rule is about being small