Two More Minutes

Two minutes is not a length of time.

For a child who has been holding a lot all day, a screen is not entertainment. It is the first quiet they have had - the noise of the house gone, nothing being asked of them, the thing that happened at school held out completely for the first time since half past three.

Which is why the floor arrives the second it stops. The tablet is the door. The fight is about what is on the other side of it, arriving all at once, at the worst hour of the day.

Inside:

• What the screen is holding out, and why that explains the size of the ending
• End it on something, not at a time - why an ending that comes from inside the programme is a completely different event
• Say what happens next, not what is stopping: why "tea in a minute" does more than "tablet off in a minute"
• Giving the landing something soft, and not talking during the floor
• Keeping it the same every day, and never making it a reward or a punishment
• Keeping it away from bedtime - not for the usual reasons
• What to say at the ending, and two that cost you
• The guilt, where it actually comes from, and why it does more damage than the screen
• What you are up against: autoplay is not an accident, and it is not a fair fight
• What you are actually deciding, which is not whether they have one
• The whole book on one page, for the afternoons there is no time to read anything

Nothing here about how long is too long, or whether you should have given it to them. You have read enough of that.

Nobody hands it over cheerfully. You are not trying to make the ending welcome - only shorter, and softer to land on.

"Shorter, and softer to land on."

For the parent, not the child. Sixty-four pages, small enough for a coat pocket.

This book supports everyday emotional awareness. It is not a screening tool and it is not a substitute for professional guidance.

From the Little Signals world: quiet stories and tools that help small humans notice their signals and find their way back to steady. No quick fixes. No hype. Regulation before optimisation.