Why we prefer communal screens to tablets

7 quick reasons that might help your decision making

I had the great good fortune of being raised by wonderful parents. (My husband, the same.) Because of this, we often default to the way our parents parented without much thought. (Because some parenting decisions are agonizing, we’ll take a shortcut where we can.)

When it came to whether or not we’d get our children tablets, our upbringing made “no” the simple and obvious answer — since I hadn’t had one as a kid, it didn’t really occur to me that I’d make a different decision for my kids. But over the years, I’ve gathered a few reasons other than “that’s how it’s always been done” as to why, in our home, we prefer communal screens to individual screens, and movies and TV shows to YouTube or tablet games.

If the decision isn’t quite so clearcut for you, I wanted to share our reasoning in case it helps with your decision making. And as always, I defer to you as the parent of your kids — you know what will serve your family best!