Winter blues, cabin fever, and colds and flu result in mobile devices occupying kids’ time for hours on end. How much screen time is too much?
Winter blues, cabin fever, and colds and flu result in mobile devices occupying kids’ time for hours on end. How much screen time is too much?
In October 2016, American Academy of Pediatrics introduced recommendations for children’s media use. Although AAP cited both negative and positive effects of technology on children, the organization offers resources such as a Family Media Plan and Media Time Calculator on healthychildren.org to assist parents with digital and real life. AAP’s general screen time recommendations include:
— Children under 18 months should generally avoid screen time.
— Ages 2 to 5 should only view a screen for an hour a day.
— For kids 6 and older, consistent limits should be placed on media activity.
AAP is adamant: “… make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.”
When children are allowed screen time, AAP advises providing only quality and/or educational programming, games and apps. By tapping General in Settings on the iPad, parents can Enable Restrictions based on family preferences; on Android products, it’s under Settings, then Users. Setting up a Restricted Profile here can add a password and limit which apps the user can access.
Finally, AAP encourages tight controls and monitoring. Parents can designate media-free times (mealtimes, outings) and media-free zones (bedrooms). Important are regular family meetings and discussions about what is appropriate and what is not, as well as opportunities for children to share and ask questions about what they are viewing.
A few of Parents magazine’s free app picks, and ones that parents and kids can even use together, are ABC Mouse Series, Hopscotch, Duolingo and PBS Kids Video.
Psychologists maintain that boredom motivates creativity. If a child knows that tablet use is only for an allotted time of the day, he or she will have no choice but to pick up a book, rummage through the dress-up box or create a work of refrigerator art.