Screen Time
There are so many opinions flying around regarding screen time for children. The world of technology is ever changing in this day and age, with both positives and negatives cropping up in social circles and the media, it’s hard to know how much is too much or too little for your children to have access to. In this post we will be focusing on the topic of screentime as an entity. We will not divulge into the world of social media. That is an entirely separate topic with its own set of debates and worries!
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) advices that children should have TV free days or have a two hour daily limit on screens. I am sure we can all agree, that as parents and carers, there will be days where we give our children a lot more than two hours in the day! There are days where us adults have a million and one things to do between doing the laundry, washing the dishes, cooking the meal and tidying up the fifty individual lego bricks your little darling has scattered across the hallway that when trodden on hurts more than having hangover on sports day. On these days it it is easier to just stick your child in front of JoJo & Gran Gran for the foreseeable than try to entertain a toddler whilst scrubbing that mornings porridge off of the kitchen walls. It doesn’t make you a bad parent or a neglectful parent or any other negative [bullshit] you might read on mumsnet. When you become a parent you don’t develop superhuman abilities that allow you to do four things at once - contrary to the beliefs of your child.
Before we delve into the controversies of screentime, we would just like to use this opportunity to emphasise that the decisions you make about how to raise your child is no one else’s business. Do what works for you and your family. Growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, we didn’t have ipads but we did have a Nintendo DS that we used to raise virtual dogs on Nintendogs instead of playing with the real dog in the other room. Maisie was raised by two twenty-four year olds who were arguably still growing up themselves! Maisie’s parents were very relaxed when it came to screentime and there were never any limits on how many hours she was allowed to watch TV or the days in which she was allowed access to the SIMS on the PC. Rebecca’s parents were more cautious with how much access the children had to these types of things. There were limits on how long the TV was on for and the Nintendo DS only came out on a Saturday. What we are trying to say is that although we had very different boundaries around screentime, we both turned out fine!
It was a different world when we were growing up. No one worried about how long we spent in front of the TV or what we were watching on the TV. But, it is important to recognise how new these technologies were and the lack of research that had been conducted into the true effects of this excessive digital consumption. Nowadays our brains are flooded with information about the detrimental effects screentime has on our growing offspring. Before the age of two, children learn through unstructured play, developing communication and motor skills by interacting with other people. Some studies have reported negative effects on speech and language, especially at a very early age but other studies have shown that beginning screen time at a slightly later age can be beneficial for the development of language [1]. Once a child has reached the age of two, TV access can be beneficial for a child when watching it with an adult as you can create a conversation around what is being seen, helping your child make sense of the world around them. Modern research has yielded some mixed conclusions around the effects of excessive screentime. One study showed that excessive expose to TV in children aged six to eighteen months was associated with increased aggression and emotional reactivity [1]. The same study also found that engaging in video games has a strong correlation with extreme anxiety [1]. Research has also linked screentime with reduced abilities to sleep and depressive symptoms [2]. Early excessive exposure of violent content has also been linked to antisocial behaviour [2]. The relationship between language development and screentime is one of a complex nature with various factors playing their own part. Screentime and language development is predominantly controlled by contextual factors such as the content children are consuming and the level of interactivity provided by the screen [3]. It is important to note that these studies are referring to excessive screen usage by children. Don’t spend your whole life worrying about the negative impact an extra episode of Bluey is going to have on your precious offspring.
The children we currently look after are at very different stages. Rebecca is caring for two babies aged 8 months and 2 years so screentime isn’t part of their daily life at this stage. However, Maisie looks after a 5-year-old who has access to an Ipad and Cbeebies! The family Maisie works for are relaxed with screentime limits. Whilst it goes without saying, the child cannot just sit in front of the TV for 5 hours straight, if he wants to watch a few shows after a long day at school that is totally fine. With the Ipad the screentime is a lot more monitored but that is mainly due to his inability to calmly and co-operatively come away from it for dinner. This is a common problem faced by many families. The games on an Ipad can become addictive for a young child. The bright graphics, the upbeat music and the incentive of earning XP and coins to spend on upgrading your car or character outfit creates a fast-paced and exciting world for your little one that they can’t seem to get enough of! I mean you can’t blame them when the alternative is us dragging them to a park on an, at best, midly warm spring day where the most exciting thing they will see is a pigeon eating the day-old YoYo another kid dropped under the slide. For Maisie, it has become a daily battle of finding distractions and solutions for the inevitable fall out that ensues after her child has reached his 20 minute Ipad allowance. We know some of you are probably screaming at your screen that the simple solution is to not let him have the Ipad in the first place. However, after a long day at work what do you like to do? Sit and scroll instagram? Mindlessly watch tiktoks for half an hour? We as adults spend far too much time on our phones. We are all guilty of it. It is hypocritical of us to tell her child they are not allowed to play on the Ipad for ten minutes whilst we telling them this with our phones in our hand. Instead of saying ‘NO’ all together, we have a few tips and tricks we use to help your little ones regulate their screentime.
Tips:
Plan an activity to do immediately after. Even something as simple as stickers and paper. This gives your child something to focus on when you ask them to turn off their game. ‘You can have 15 minutes on your Ipad but when it’s finished we are going to do some stickers in the kitchen. Maybe you could make Daddy a card’
Put a physical timer on so it does not come as a shock to your child when their screentime is over. It is also a good idea to give your child reminders such as you have five minutes left then we are going to turn it off.
Something we find works really well is starting the screentime just before you need them to do something such as dinner so that you can finish the screetime after dinner. This helps to bring the child away from the Ipad as there is the promise that they can go back to it after dinner. It is also a great way to get slow and fussy eaters to engage with their food as they know when they are done they can continue their screentime.
If you are struggling to get your child off the screen start playing with their toys next to them. Don’t say anything just simply start playing with their cars or their lego. You will notice your child looking over to see what you are doing and they may even ask you ‘why are you playing with my toys’ reply with a simple ‘Because I find it really fun to play with lego. I am going to build a big tower do you want to help me? Or we could see who can build the biggest tower I think it might be me!’ Don’t be surprised if they don’t immediately shut off the Ipad and leap at the opportunity of playing with you because eventually they will. They will find it hard to resist. Don’t make a big fuss about them coming off the Ipad and praise them for switching it off. Just let them join in with the game you are playing. The key is to keep the attention away from the device.
Keep the screens out of the bedroom. If you are going to let your child have access to the Ipad, make sure its played downstairs where everyone else is.
Screens are here to say and unfortunately you can’t keep your children off them forever. They can be an amazing tool for keeping in contact with friends and family that live far away and there are some incredible apps and resources around to aid your child’s development. Our personal favourites include Mathseeds, Smarttik and Readingeggs. As long as you are monitoring the content your children are consuming and don’t let them have unlimited access to the screens, a little bit here and there is not going to rot their brains!
[1] Karani, N. F., Sher, J., & Mophosho, M. (2022). The influence of screen time on children’s language development: A scoping review. South African Journal of Communication Disorders, 69(1), 825.
[2] Oswald, T. K., Rumbold, A. R., Kedzior, S. G., & Moore, V. M. (2020). Psychological impacts of “screen time” and “green time” for children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review. PloS one, 15(9)
[3] Lissak, G. (2018). Adverse physiological and psychological effects of screen time on children and adolescents: Literature review and case study. Environmental research, 164, 149-157.
[4] Guellai, B., Somogyi, E., Esseily, R., & Chopin, A. (2022). Effects of screen exposure on young children’s cognitive development: A review. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 923370.