Two hours a day on

Tik Tok? Apparently this is now "normal" for about half of our 10-15yr old students.

I have yet to even look at Tik Tok. I have no idea how it works. Perhaps I need to try and find it and explore it? Really I am not interested. It puzzles me how anyone would want to spend so much time watching it, not just occasionally but every day.

These past few weeks I have been sorting and packing books. Yesterday someone came and took away a load. Her partner turned up and took another load. They are going to be divided between two charities and a school. The charities have "op-shops" around the city and the school is a small, faith based school where reading is emphasised. It is not an ultra-religious school like some, simply a school where concerned parents want their children to spend less time viewing screens and more time reading and doing. I was very happy to see the books go off to those locations.

Middle Cat and I discussed reading with the woman who came to pick the books up. She is anxious for her children to read and told us she reads to them at night. "It's a bedtime ritual." 

I am all for that. Four of the children in this street are read to at night. One of the boys is not at all interested in reading...or school. He spends most of his daylight hours outside kicking or batting a ball. Inside he is most definitely not permitted extended screen time. It is the same for his sister. There might be arguments but his parents are firm about it.  The same is true of the twins at the end of the street. Somehow their mother, even with another and much younger child, finds time to do things with them, hear them read and read to them. All four of them were eager to take home the craft material I have been clearing out. Cardboard! Paper! Stickers! Tape! Polystyrene shapes! 

"I love you Cat," the youngest told me and snuggled in for a moment. 

I have put a bit aside for the two boys who recently moved house.

The other two children left in this street are different. We rarely see them outside. On the admission of their father they spend a lot of time on their computers at the ages of ten and eight. One of the other mothers told me yesterday that her active child went to ask if the other boy would like to come and play. The response was, "No. He's playing games on his computer." We both agreed that this said a lot about the way he interacts - or rather, does not interact. 

It is easier to have a conversation with the almost six year old in the street than it is to have one with the eight year old. The six year old is much more inquisitive too. 

If those two hours a day on Tik Tok were spent reading perhaps things would be different?