We had a lovely, lovely 12 days in Ireland, and one of the lovely-factors was that TV was virtually absent. Having no background noise calmed me, and having very little idea what was going on in the world was restful. Most importantly, I was thrilled to see my children having so much fun with little screen dependence.

But, alas, we returned to our real world. And TV came back with a vengeance. After two full days of letting TV have its way with our boys, we laid down the parental boom. Back to one hour a day. Some complaining ensued. But it was not as bad as expected. (I know deep down the kids knew so much TV was leaving them feeling like Twinkees.) We certainly have more work to do on this, as other screens have replaced some of that TV time. But we’re on our way. And sometimes it feels really good to just be the parent and say “Turn it off.” Why? “Because I said so.”