Home Town stars Erin Napier and Ben Napier love their life with two daughters — and they’ve figured out what works for their family.
“My kids have never held a phone or a tablet or anything,” Erin, 38, recently told Us Weekly when asked whether she and Ben, 40, are proponents of limited screen time.
The Heirloom Rooms: Soulful Stories of Home author and Ben share daughters Helen, 5, and Mae, 2. Erin further noted that the girls have “FaceTimed grandparents” on devices and “sometimes” watch TV, but Helen and Mae are mostly “having a lot” of fun in real life.
“They’re getting filthy. They go outside, they play, they dig [and] they climb trees,” Erin added. “That’s where we are.”
While the married reality TV stars primarily enforce a screen-free environment, there is a special time when they can click on the TV.
“[Before dinner] actually helps them,” Erin explained. “Sometimes the only time the TV comes on is when [I say], ‘We need to settle down. We need to sit down,’ and I’ll turn it on for a few minutes while they start eating.”
She continued: “Then we turn it off so we can have family dinner and talk. I dunno, [there’s] something about the TV [that] gets them in one location where I want them to be and quiet. I don’t like for it to be on, but sometimes it’s, like, that bug light that draws them in.”
One of the shows that the Napiers let their daughters watch is their HGTV renovation series.
“[Mae] says sometimes, ‘I wanna go to Home Town. I wanna go to Home Town,’ and what she really means is she wants to go to the construction site with me. She likes to talk to everybody,” Erin quipped. “But they kind of get [the idea of the show]. Helen loves drawing houses [and] that is something that, I guess, she picked up from Home Town. When we’re like, ‘Do you want to watch Home Town tonight?’ She’ll say, ‘Yes,’ only because she wants to stay up late.”
Erin and Ben have also come up with certain rules for when Helen and Mae can have dessert, go on social media and get homework help.
“No, I did my homework. That’s your turn, baby,” Erin said with a laugh. “I don’t help her. I sit there and I sit with her and she asks questions. I help her, but she’s got to do it.”
Helen’s “kindergarten math” is about all that Erin can provide assistance with at the moment. “I’m very worried about when we get to the complicated math — and I’m not great at math — so we’re talking seventh grade,” she stressed. “It’s going to get rough, but right now I’ve got it [down].”
For more of Erin’s go-to tips, watch the video above and pick up her new design book, Heirloom Rooms, on shelves now.
With reporting by Charlie Cooper
