Establishing Healthy Screen Routine For Children

A talk for parents and guardians about how to (re-)create a healthy screen routine for children, designed to help you change daily routines using my ACE-model: A stands for alternative activities; C for consistency, and, E for exemplary behavior.

Transcript

Hi there,

And thank you for joining this talk about how to create a healthy screen time routine for your children.

My name is Eva van der Ploegh,

And I have a PhD in public health and a master's degree in social psychology.

Social psychology focuses on people who function without pathologically disabling mental health issues,

And studies phenomena such as self-image,

Group processes,

And one of my personal favourite emotions.

I am a parent of an 8 year old,

And based on my own experiences and those around me,

I feel one of the biggest parenting challenges of this age is how to establish boundaries and healthy screen time for our children.

As I mentioned,

My son is 8,

So my personal experiences and things I am about to share have only been tested up to this age.

However,

I think this talk will be highly relevant for the age group of newborns to 12 years old,

Approximately.

If you are the parent of a teenager,

You may hear pointers that are of help,

But I am well aware that the challenges will change as children enter adolescence.

And also for adults themselves,

You are very welcome to listen to this talk and take away what helps you.

I also have a 10 day course here on InsideTimer that focuses on mindful use of social media.

And yes,

I intentionally mentioned that this talk is also for parents of newborns,

Or even for parents who are expecting.

Of course,

Screens will not immediately be part of infants' lives,

However,

I feel parents cannot start preparing and thinking about healthy screen use early enough.

Because in my experience,

What you do at a young age will impact on how children will relate to screens in the years to come.

And changes will be much more difficult to make when some sort of routine has been established or expectations have been set.

Because acronyms are easy to remember,

I introduced my ACE model to assist you to work towards healthy screen use for your children.

But as a disclaimer,

This method is nothing like an ACE in tennis,

Where you will throw the ball high in the air,

Hit it with all your might,

Place it perfectly and get a point and no resistance in return.

This process is far from that,

It is more a full tennis match,

Where you sometimes hit an ACE and get it right,

Right away.

But more often it is an endless back and forth where you keep adjusting your techniques to win a point.

Trial and error and patience are key.

ACE stands for A.

Alternatives,

C.

Consistency and E.

Exemplary.

Let me explain.

With alternatives I mean that as parents we should have an offering of alternative activities up our sleeves.

Obviously I mean activities that do not involve screens and are equally loved by our children.

Activities that capture their attention and make them forget screens even exist.

Of course every child enjoys different activities and hobbies.

And it is for you all to find out those that really capture them.

As a starting point you could try to find at least 5 activities that do not involve screens.

These could be sports clubs,

But can also be walking around the mall,

Going out for a meal,

Board and card games,

Reading,

Writing,

Etc.

From when my son was younger and started watching some series,

My main green flag was,

Is he still interested in doing other activities?

And when doing so,

Does he not talk too much about screen time?

I have made adjustments to the screen use routine solely based on the realization that it was taking over.

Not necessarily in the time spent on-screen versus off-screen,

But because it is constantly on my child's mind,

And he does not want to talk about other things.

Note that if you find yourselves in a place where screens are the predominant leisure activity,

Starting with the A is going to be tremendously difficult.

The habit,

The expectation and the dependence on the screen will not be broken by offering other activities.

They will simply say that these are not of interest.

But do not despair,

In this case you can start with the C,

For consistency.

From the beginning,

When screen time comes into your child's life,

Or if you are looking to make a change now,

Consistency is key.

I am all for involving children in decision making and offering choices,

But in the case of screen time,

This cannot be the starting point.

Screens are highly addictive,

As addictive as cocaine and slot machines,

So children will always choose screens.

It is up to us to set very clear boundaries and stick to those.

As an example,

My son both games and watches series.

I have noticed that gaming gets out of hand very easily,

So we initially started,

Gaming only on Saturday and Sunday,

For one hour per day.

We have since added one afternoon,

Again of one hour playing time,

Where we game together,

Which allows me to monitor what he is doing,

And well,

I really enjoy having this time together as well.

On the other afternoons,

An hour of screen time is allowed,

Which means watching his series on a streaming service.

With the exception of Wednesdays,

Which has become our digital detox day,

And after school we go for an ice cream and head to the beach for some physical activity.

On the weekend,

There is some more room for watching series or a movie,

Often together,

To take breaks and relax.

Within these parameters,

You can still give your child choices.

For example,

My son and I agreed on which days our gaming together time is and on which day the detox.

Also,

Some Lego sets now need to be built,

Using a tablet.

I will give my son the choice to watch his series or build using the screen.

My general recommendations for how much and when to watch are,

Once a day during school days,

Preferably not upon waking up or before going to bed.

Between school and dinner is a great time,

For a maximum of one hour.

I have noticed a marked change in response and behavior,

After 75 minutes of use.

All of a sudden,

To stop becomes an argument,

And I have a moody,

Grumpy child walking around.

Within one hour,

There are hardly ever any issues.

Choose series over random videos.

Series stimulate the brain much milder than many short video clips,

And constantly making choices.

In this way,

You also avoid that algorithms force clips on our children that we do not necessarily want them to see.

And watching series creates clarity,

Calm and stimulates children's fantasies,

As they get really familiar with characters and storylines.

Series also really help with sticking to the time limit.

Free series of 22 minutes mark the end at 66 minutes.

If this is all very new to your family,

And thus challenging to implement,

I recommend to keep a strict schedule during the weekend as well.

There will come a time when your child has accepted your rules,

And will stop watching when the free series are done.

This might be an indication that you can start being a little bit more relaxed on the weekends with an extra here and there.

And let me tell you,

From there it is still constant adjustments and renegotiations.

Which brings me to the E of ACE,

Exemplary behavior of us as parents.

I know,

Unpopular opinion,

But to be able to achieve consistency,

And enjoy other activities together,

We really need to lead the way.

We have all heard our children say things we say at home.

We are their main role models,

And they will look at us,

And in the pre-teenage years,

They will do what we do.

It will undermine your authority,

If you restrict their screen use to one hour,

Yet you are constantly on your phone.

Using screens at the same time as them works great,

And limiting use as much as possible when they are around at other times.

You could use school and sleep times to catch up if needed.

If I do need to use my phone,

I will always tell my son what I am doing.

Something along the lines,

A work email came up and I would like to read it,

Or I forgot to reply to my friend about our meeting tomorrow,

Or I am making a bank transfer or am ordering our food.

In this way,

It is not open to interpretation why you are using your phone in that moment.

The challenge for us is then of course,

To put our way our phone the minute we have done what we said we would.

I now often read a book when my son is gaming on the weekend,

Because it is such a beautiful quiet moment.

I know he notices this.

And the opposite,

If sometimes I am exhausted,

Lazy or moody,

Especially in the late afternoon,

He knows that I will take some moments to relax on my phone.

Even just sharing that that is what I am doing makes a difference,

As it provides insight into what I am doing,

Instead of it all being one great big mystery that I seem really engrossed in and seems to be even more important than our children themselves.

So to summarize,

To hit an ace,

We display exemplary behavior as much as we can.

We consistently set boundaries and offer alternative,

Equally enjoyable activities.

In addition,

We accept this process of trial and error and ourselves as imperfect beings,

Possibly sharing as much of this process as a child is interested in.

Hopefully in this manner we can build a very solid foundation,

Which helps our children to relate in a healthy way to screens.

To finish up,

I would like to share some additional recommendations.

Try not to forbid.

When our kids were younger,

I had a friend who tried to let her son watch only on the weekends.

I know that sounds really good,

But it was an absolute war every weekend when he could finally watch.

Tantrums galore.

My guidance is,

If the transition from screen time to stopping is easy,

You are doing it right.

Your child may actually surprise you and even hand back the tablet saying,

I actually want to do something else now.

Follow the age recommendations.

I am a bit lenient,

Especially when I know the movie and I think it will be okay.

But I will always watch things together if they are parental guidance or are meant for slightly older kids.

For me,

Honesty has become much more important than enforcing rules through anger or punishments.

We are now in a situation where my son will say,

Mom,

I watched some extra trailers after I finished my series.

I usually say okay,

He already knows that he cannot do this every day and he won't,

So I don't need to say anything else.

I find it more important that he shares this with me so I know what is going on.

And sometimes I secretly snigger that he bended the rule somewhat,

Which I think is healthy behavior.

Hating and punishing will not change their interest or behavior,

But they will just hide it from us.

I hope you enjoyed this talk and it has inspired you to try many things and see what works in your home.

It is not my intention to pretend that this is easy,

It is not.

It is the challenge of our time.

Accept mistakes and relapses and start again.

We can only hope for small changes over time that will amount to healthy relationships with screens now and when they grow up.

Appreciating all your hard work and sending you love.

Namaste.