Screen Time
I'm an early teen with around 3-4 hours of screen time ever since I figured out the passcode. My grades at school have been straight A's, I've finished everything my parents have assigned me each day during summer break, the only hunch my devices give are lots of procrastinating. I get it done, just pretty slowly. My mom, who I know is only looking out for me, has an authoritarian-ish rule over my devices, having them taken away before bed (this is fine) but she only gives me 30 minutes for EVERYTHING on my phone- Duolingo, TikTok, Instagram, combined into 30 minutes. She's rather aggressive when any of us piss her off so you can imagine how she reacts when she occasionally takes my phone to look at my screen time and comes to discover I've been averaging more time than she thought I was. She took away almost all my devices for the rest of the summer and gave me the routine yelling at. I'm mad at her, but I still feel guilty because she pays for all of my expensive music and dance lessons, but I always feel so restricted when I don't know the password and stuck with barely any time to even use my phone. I ALWAYS end up cracking the code or finding some kind of workaround because I just can't help it, I feel choked without any social interaction with my peers and depressed without entertainment. Call it addiction, but at least give me more time a day than 30 minutes. I know she's just looking out for my best interests, but I really do wish I could have a little more freedom. Sure, it was obvious I needed such restrictions as a child to prevent myself from being exposed to the wrong kinds of content, but now, I'm so much more experienced and I need my screen more for many other reasons. My mom doesn't teach me to curl my hair, how to makeup, or anything like that, I have to learn how to grow up myself and not having these devices doesn't help. I may doomscroll, but I know when I need to stop myself to get something done. I just feel like my mom is pretty ignorant in many aspects. I want to tell her everything I've just written in this post, but I don't know if it'll even have a lasting impact because she mainly believes she's right the majority of the time, she assumes the worst things in every situation, and she also has pretty broken English so ranting to her and getting the message to sink in is harder.
This is more about how she believes screen time is holding me back from doing things- yes, it does in some ways but not entirely. Again, the only reason I can do my own makeup or french braid my hair is from the internet, where I get my crochet patterns from, and other things. When she caught me with the extra screen time, that same day she started rambling on about how a family friend's art project placed in a competition or something and made me go to art class twice a week instead of once so I could stop being the failure she thinks I am.