If you're a parent, you probably know just how difficult it can be to try and regulate your children's screen time to make sure they stay active and engage in other hobbies as much as possible.
And while most parents would be tempted to confiscate their child's phone or games console if they broke their screen time limits, one dad has come up with an unusual way to teach his son about the dangers of staring at a screen for too long - by making him do it for 17 hours straight.
The dad, from Shenzhen, China, caught his 11-year-old son playing video games on his phone at 1.30am earlier this month, which was way past the youngster's bedtime.
According to local Chinese media, the dad - known only as Huang - decided that instead of taking away his son's phone, he'd let him play for as long as he wanted, on just one condition - he wasn't allowed to sleep.
Huang shared his method in a video posted to Chinese social media platform Douyin, and hoped to get his son to play for 24 hours in order to show him how bad for your health it can be to prioritise gaming over things like sleeping.
After his son agreed to his terms, Huang phoned his child's school to tell them he wouldn't be coming in that day, and let his son continue playing his game.
By 7.30am, the boy was still going strong and enjoying his time on the unnamed video game, but after 12 straight hours of gaming, he failed to fight off the desire to sleep and dozed off at 1.30pm.
Huang immediately woke his son up and told him to keep playing, and the youngster managed to keep going for another few hours, until he reportedly "pleaded for forgiveness" at 6.30pm - 17 hours after he was first caught playing.
The boy even wrote a letter on his computer apologising for playing games past his bedtime, and vowed never to do it again.
Part of the letter, which was written in English, read: "I promise I must go to bed before 11 o'clock. I promise not to play the phone [game] before going to bed [and] not to play with toys."
And although his unconventional method was successful, Huang has insisted he would never recommend the punishment to other parents who might be struggling with managing their kids' screen time.
He also said in a follow-up video: "My son usually has good grades and is very obedient. He often goes outdoors with me, and his physical fitness is also good."
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