Screentime management can be an extremely confusing part of parenthood to understand and navigate. With so much conflicting information on the internet, along with balancing the increasing demands of working parents, screentime can often cause a lot of stress in households. We also see that excessive screentime can play a big part in meltdowns, emotional regulation difficulties and poor emotional well-bring outcomes for our children. This blog will outline some of the screen time recommendations for our children and give practical strategies as to how to manage screentime with your little ones.
Australia’s national guidelines for screentime are incorporated within the national physical activity and exercise guidelines. In these recommendations screentime falls under sedentary time for young children. The guidelines recommend the following:
- no screen time for children younger than two years
- no more than one hour per day for children aged 2–5 years
- no more than two hours of sedentary recreational screen time per day for children and young people aged 5–17 years (not including schoolwork).
In contrast the physical activity and movement guidelines are as follows:
- Children aged 1-5 years, they should be getting at least 3 hours of various physical activities throughout the day, including energetic play.
- Children and young people aged 5-17 years should engage in at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day.
Sometimes these guidelines may feel difficult to manage, particularly when parenting children with additional needs as screentime can provide opportunities for regulation and communication. Ultimately, we want to be able to make informed choices about our child’s activities and create a healthy balance between physical activity and screentime for optimal health and well-being.
Our OT top 10 tips for managing screens in the home
Here are our top 10 tips for managing screentime in the home to reduce meltdowns and increase emotional and physical health.
- Set boundaries: It is important to set and enforce boundaries around screentime to minimise excessive usage. This may look like allowing children access to screens at certain times such as for 20 minutes after school. Setting boundaries around the use of screentime and building it into your child’s routine may cause resistance initially however, holding these boundaries in place will help to create healthy expectations of the purpose of screentime and will help manage behaviours in the long term.
- Create screen free zones: Rules around where you can use screens can be helpful to manage the amount of time your children are on screens. For example, you may keep the bedroom and dinner table as screen free zones but allow screens on the couch. In doing this you can help foster healthy relationships and associations between rooms in the house and their purpose.
- Make sure you have other activities set up!: When we limit screentime it is important that your children are able to engage in other activities. With the physical exercise guidelines in mind, you may redirect your child out to the garden to make an obstacle course or have toys and activities easily accessible inside for your child to play with. Having toys on rotation can also be helpful to maintain your child’s interest and curiosity.
- Where possible, redirect to the TV vs the iPad: Watching shows on TV allows children to maintain awareness of their peripheries much easier than short-sighted viewing of an iPad screen or phone. This reduces the chance of hyperfocus and will hopefully make transitioning away from the screen easier.
- Offer time warnings prior to turning off the device: When screen time is almost finished, it is important that we give timer warnings prior to turning off the screen. In doing this we prepare the child cognitively for what to expect. This will hopefully reduce the chance of meltdown when transitioning away from the screen. Some children may benefit from visual timers and alarms to further support this process.
- Limit screentime around mealtimes and before bedtime: Removing screens at mealtimes will give your child the opportunity to engage with you and participate in developmentally rich experiences as a family. This should be something followed by everyone at mealtimes. Removing screens before bed is imperative for good sleep hygiene as screens can impact the brain’s ability to switch off and prepare for sleep.
- Use guided access: If you are having trouble monitoring screen usage with your children and they are accessing inappropriate content, you can set up guided access using apple’s accessibility features
Support for Apple user, click here.
Android users can also use a version of this called Screen Pinning: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-guided-access-android-4689158
- Engage with your child in iPad games: Screentime doesn’t always need to be passive watching, there are a number of wonderful interactive games and apps that your child can access on the iPad. Some of our favourites are:
- Letter school for pre-writing lines and letter formations
- Habitica – for organization and productivity
- Sesame street breathing – for regulation
- Tiny tap – learning and education games
- Social media and gaming – Firstly, it is important to be considerate of the age restrictions placed on social media apps and online games. These include TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, Roblox, Fortnite, Among Us, Discord, Minecraft to name just few. If your child entering the world of social media and gaming, it is important to have open conversations with your children about appropriate usage. Open and honest conversations are important to manage social media expectations and boundaries.
- Model the behaviour!: One of the most powerful things you can do to manage screentime at home is to lead by example. Our children are watching and learning from us at all times, so it is important to model the behaviours that we expect from our children.
https://www.aoa.org/news/clinical-eye-care/public-health/screen-time-for-children-under-5?sso=y
