Screen Encouragement
Dear Tired Parents, are you feeling guilty about your children’s screen time? Allow me to encourage you. Children who are allowed a moderate amount of enriching and neutral digital entertainment with parental supervision and involvement fare better in the long run than children whose screen time is severely limited (1). Because our children will eventually have unlimited access to their own screens it behooves them to learn to enjoy screens in moderation and to develop the ability to get on and off digital devices gracefully. They will learn best by being allowed some access now with parental guidance.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, two hours of digital entertainment per day is considered to be a healthy amount (2). I was raised in a home with only one television. When I had my first apartment as an adult I chose not to have a television, although I did have a smartphone and a computer. For me, two hours sounds like plenty of time. My husband has always enjoyed more digital entertainment than me, from childhood on. He has been the stay-at-home parent for our three children. To him, two hours sounded like hardly enough screen time. When surveyed, many people admit that two hours sounds unrealistic to actually live by (3).
Each family must decide what is doable based on the combination of expectations and experiences of the family members. Perhaps two hours gives you the freedom to increase your home’s allowance. It did for me. Without that guideline, I felt immense tension whenever I would walk in on my children accessing screens with my husband’s permission. Any time felt like too much time. It took a little while for my husband to come to agree with decreasing the time allowance down to two hours. It has enhanced our marriage for both of us to adjust our original expectations.
Many youth are willing to admit that their digital entertainment time is excessive, reporting up to 11 hours of use daily (3).
Whether two hours is more than enough, or too little perhaps you would consider taking the following steps:
Monitor your own digital entertainment time. I use Quality Time, a free app. It alerts me to the number of times I have unlocked my screen per day and how I am allotting my screen time.
Admit to your family that it would benefit you personally to limit your digital entertainment time.
Ask if anyone else believes they spend too much time on screen.
Invite anyone who is willing to participate in a day of limiting digital entertainment to just two hours.
Offer a prize to any who are able to meet the challenge.
Let me know how the challenge goes and what prize you choose. Share this article with a friend who could benefit from it.
For more information about screen management please order the book I coauthored with Steve Arterburn: Understanding and Loving Your Child in a Screen Saturated World. Click here: https://amzn.to/3O10Vy7
References
Samuel, Alexandra. Parents: Reject Technology Shame. The Atlantic. 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-parents-shouldnt-feel-technology-shame/414163/
American Academy of Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics: Children, adolescents, and television. Pediatrics. 2001;107:423–426. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.107.2.423
Minges, K. E., Owen, N., Salmon, J., Chao, A., Dunstan, D. W., & Whittemore, R. (2015). Reducing youth screen time: qualitative metasynthesis of findings on barriers and facilitators. Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 34(4), 381–397. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000172
