How to help your kids balance screen time and the real world
When it comes to kids and screens, it often feels as though parents are wearing headphones with conflicting messages piped into each ear. On one side: a steady drumbeat of increasingly dire warnings about game addictions and the developmental consequences of letting kids spend too much time on devices. On the other side: the powerful siren song of phones, laptops, tablets and video games.
As with everything, it’s up to parents to find balance. Although there are general guidelines on how to set those limits, the answer will vary from family to family, and even from one child to another within a family, says David Hill, a pediatrician and father of five in Chapel Hill, N.C.
As you come up with a plan, look at your needs and your child’s needs, and tailor the guidelines appropriately. For example, Hill, the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, says that for a travel soccer player who spends 90 minutes at practice three times a week, on top of homework, sleeping and socializing, the right amount may be five minutes a day. Another child who has fewer activities and obligations may have time for more. It also depends on what the child is doing on the device, Hill says. Working on a school project with friends is not the same thing as playing a first-person shooter game.
We asked Hill and other experts how parents can help kids fight the lure of the screen. Here are their suggestions.
1. Keep playing with your kids.
As our children get older and no longer require constant supervision, parents tend to retreat into the background, leaving kids to figure out how to amuse themselves.
A certain amount of that is a good thing. But the best way to get a child interested in doing something, whether it’s a jigsaw puzzle, a card game or shooting baskets, is to do it with them, says Katie Hurley, a psychotherapist in Los Angeles.
“Play changes as kids grow, but they don’t stop needing that meaningful connection with parents,” Hurley says.
“A lot of parents seem to feel great difficulty with saying no to their kids,” says Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, a professor of education, psychology, linguistics and cognitive science at the University of Delaware. “Acknowledge the struggle, but stick to the limits,” she says.
“We’re in charge of their emotional health. Twelve-year-olds are not known for making the best decisions.”
2. Just say no. 3. Slow down on purging toys.
But before deciding those old American Girl dolls no longer spark joy for your tween, hit the pause button, Hurley says. Children have a tendency to revisit items they’ve seemingly outgrown, and having a healthy amount of kid clutter at the ready can promote imaginative play.
“Kids have a way of going back to things when they’re struggling, to go back to a safer time,” she says. “They’ll use all kinds of everyday things to create play scenarios. But if it’s all taken away and we’re all living in perfectly clean spaces that aren’t playful, they’re not going to play.”
Providing them with options for analog play, whether it’s crayons and paper, blocks, board games or cardboard boxes they can use to create a fort, can help them resist devices.
4. Let them be bored.
“We’ve become very uncomfortable with boredom, for adults as well,” says Hill. “The idea that there has to be a thing at all times is pervasive.”
He says brain imaging studies have shown that when people are bored, their brains “light up like crazy” as they engage in creative thought.
It’s hard to convince kids they should be doing something other than staring at their phones when that’s how we spend most of our free time.
“Remember when you used to push a stroller, you would talk to the kid about what you were seeing,” Golinkoff says.
“Now adults are pushing a stroller and talking on their cellphone, so the kids are getting less input ... We need to put the phones away and interact with children.”
5. Walk the walk.