Hello coaches, I recently asked you about 13 year old son’s screen time. My starting model is:

C: Son screen time
T: I’m a bad mum for allowing him to be in front of a screen so many hours each day
F: guilt
A: when I feel guilty I sometimes nag at him a bit, but don’t do anything effective, it leads to rumination and non-action
R: I don’t show up as the mum I would like to be in this area & don’t set limits for screen time

You advised me to consider that my own thinking about this – that it’s a HUGE PROBLEM – may not be factual. I did some journaling work on this this morning, and realized that yes, factually it isn’t a problem: I think I’ve been assuming my thought about screen time in adolescents goes in the C line.  When I thought more about it I saw that the C line is more something like C: 13 year old son – X amount of hours screen time yesterday.

From there I am open to considering that there could be people that see this as a good thing or some people could be utterly neutral to how many hours my son or any son is in front of screens.  Or they may see it negatively but with a very different set of thoughts to mine.  So I guess I am convinced that it’s not a factual problem, it’s my thought about it makes it a problem.  I still come up with a difficulty in how to think about it – with better thoughts – in a way that doesn’t involve so much self blame (for me as a mum), and so much worry (for my son)

Here are some questions:  Do I keep trying for different thoughts about this? (and if so what might they be? I can’t seem to find any as I genuinely am convinced by my thoughts) or do I focus on the A line? as in feel what I feel, think what I think, but do some problem solving with husband about what we can change, ignoring my thoughts & feelings?  I also realize that if I put my own way of seeing this as a C, I come up with this:

C: my thoughts/feelings about son’s screen time
T: I keep blaming myself and doing nothing!
F: self blame
A: inaction
R: doing nothing about screen time

Anyway. Just some morning thoughts! Looking forward to your feedback.