My preteen daughter called me bruh the other day. Lets let that sit there for a minute.
Okay so scene: She was fussing via text at me about having phone screen time on the weekend. That its not fair because she is the only one with it, when all she wants to do is play group chat games with her little raggedy tail friends. For those of you who don't know: screen time is a feature embedded into your updated iPhone and apple devices, used to monitor the way you use your device. You can use screen time to get information about what you and your family members spend time on your devices, which apps and websites you use, how often you pick up your device, in a given day or even hour. You can also schedule time away from your screen, set time limits for certain app usage and block calls from certain people during certain times.
So now that you know what her issue is, now hear my issue: I wouldn't care if she was talking to a family member at 11:58pm... once that Midnight screen time reminder comes on, it's time to wrap that conversation on up! It may not be bed time but it is definitely get off the phone time. There should be no walking, talking, saying or playing at, on, or after Midnight. Everything you wanted to do today, should have been done during normal business hours. So the 12am-6am screen time that I put on her phone is for her protection more than anything. You heard Whodini... The Freaks come out at night.
Mind you this is Midnight on the weekends and 10pm on the week days. Bedtime is 930 on the week days so she rarely fights with that because we wake up early, but for some reason, that weekend phone curfew really got under her skin this weekend and she almost lost her phone all together.
I initially tried to approach the disrespect as a "gentle parent", but there was no nice way to say what I had to say so I had to text threat her big poof ball head ass because as my Mama always told me: "I'm not one of your little friends." I also added that I would "slap her teeth out if" she ever bruh'd me again... another great saying passed down from generations. She was over a family member's house so I was nowhere close to touching her but the fear should always be near and dear.
This new generation of kids are so entitled. They don't listen to understand anything reasonable. They just want what they want and it somehow always involves an electronic device. I remember when my kids would have book reading contests, and when they didn't know how to read, they would look at the pictures and make their own stories using context clues. Now it's YouTube, Discord, TikTok, Roblox and whatever other two syllable app clouding their brains on a daily.
For any other old souled Moms who need a tutorial on how to set up Screen time limitations on your child's iPhone, message me. For any new age Moms who have gentle parenting techniques for pre teens, message me. Like the St. Lunatics said: We all we got.
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