A few weeks ago I stumbled across an article about medical experts in France who were calling to review screen time guidelines for children. While it had previously been recommended that screens be avoided before the age of three, they were now suggesting that this should be revised to six. Oh balls, I thought as I glanced at my three-year-old daughter engrossed in a deranged ASMR slime video.
It was quite alarming. Various paediatric, public health, and psychiatric societies had penned an urgent letter to the government. They stated that: “Screens in whatever form do not meet children’s needs. Worse, they hinder and alter brain development,” even going so far as to state that they cause “a lasting alteration to their health and their intellectual capacities.”
Intrigued by the French outlook, I investigated further and discovered that ‘screen time’, allegedly, isn’t a big thing in France. In fact, a lot of things I struggle with in parenthood like tantrums, bad behaviour, and children surviving solely on bananas and unleavened bread, are said to just not exist there. As my British approach — a madcap combination of gentle parenting, panicked ferality, and a waning will to live — didn't really seem to be working, I thought I’d give their methods a whirl for a week to see if I’d emerge from the other side as the matriarch of two placid and meltdown-free children.
I reviewed an array of materials such as Pamela Druckerman’s French Children Don’t Throw Food, YouTube videos of French women teaching parenting approaches, and Instagram Reels of anglophone mothers in Paris such as Isabella Bertolami.
I wasn’t sure I’d survive past 8am, and so it’s a shock that seven days later, I remain in an unlooted house with the iPad still locked away
Based on what I gathered, I cobbled together an understanding of French parenting and established the most important concepts: dining as a family (and eating the same food), teaching patience, and creating strong boundaries. I also planned to follow guidelines of lessened screen time, and hid our iPad in the darkened depths of a kitchen cupboard.
I was, however, sad to discover that French parenting wasn’t centred around wallowing in ennui or smoking tiny cigarettes while having an existential crisis, as I believe that I would have excelled in these areas. My biggest concern, initially, was that without an iPad my children would revolt and beat me to death with wooden spoons. I envisaged revolutionary scenes of chaos and bedlam as my daughter spurred on my son to ransack the house in search of the screen. I wasn’t sure I’d survive past 8am, and so it’s a shock that, seven days later, I remain in an unlooted house with the iPad still locked away, collecting dust.
I feared that I’d have to take on a new role as some kind of mad clown, I found that my children were happy to play outside or draw, without much cajoling
Somehow, screen time was easy to shrug off. Luckily, as my son is one and has a limited vocabulary that only includes animals and highly specific food items, he was unable to communicate any screen desires. My daughter, however, did ask for her usual YouTube nightmare fuel, but I found that a vague "later" somehow calmed her.
Instead, I redirected attention to playing with toys in their room, and now that we were eating together, the entertainment during that time became chatter. While I feared that I’d have to take on a new role as some kind of mad clown, I found that my children were happy to play outside or draw, without much cajoling.
Another benefit from eating together was that my children ate things they previously would have thrown at me. While I’d always served them the food that I’d made for myself, it was usually received with suspicion at best, and contempt at worst. Now, however, as I sat by their side, eating the same pea and halloumi curry, it, inexplicably, became far more palatable to them.
For me, the hardest part of French parenting was policing boundaries. As per French Children Don’t Throw Food, the French have an assortment of facial expressions to employ, such as ‘The Big Eyes’ that are supposed to be effective in making a point without raising your voice. Unfortunately, every time that I attempted The Big Eyes I looked like an unhinged owl with trapped wind, and set my daughter off into fits of giggles, derailing any attempt at authority.
One of the more unusual tips that I found in Druckerman’s book was that, when you’re enforcing rules and encounter a tantrum, the best way through it is away from it. While I’d previously dealt with them like a hostage negotiator, trying to calmly talk a tiny madman down from a meltdown; according to her book, distractions are far more effective.
Stories about your life, specifically, are cited as a helpful tool to redirect attention, as young children are apparently fascinated by parental anecdotes. Surprisingly, I found this method to work about 80 per cent of the time, although my daughter showed no interest in my life in New York during a Level 11 meltdown.
An anecdote about a ghost’s head in a vase, however, worked wonders during a less apocalyptic tantrum. There were some other areas of French parenting that I didn’t fully attempt — apparently French mothers dress well all the time, and as a feral troll who thrives in elasticated waists, I omitted this element.
Overall, I found that the lack of screen time felt much healthier than the mental swamp we’d been living in, and eating together has helped my children to embrace food they would have otherwise immediately rejected, and now they'll even eat (some) vegetables.
I wouldn’t say that we are tantrum-free quite yet, and I’m not sure that I would ever fully be able to master the ‘stricter’ elements of French parenting. Although, having said that, I do think that my ‘big eyes’ have come a long way in a week, and I’m happy to report that I now look decidedly less like a farting bird while doing them.
