The benefits of limiting screen time for kids often begin with parents. Children notice how often adults reach for phones, check email or scroll during family time. When parents create healthier screen habits at home, children get more eye contact, better conversations, stronger emotional connection and clearer limits around technology.
Most of us feel some concern about our children’s fixation on technology and the amount of time they spend on electronic devices. We worry about the elementary school child with a video game habit and the tween or teen absorbed in a smartphone.
What few of us realize, or perhaps do not want to admit, is the connection between our children’s media habits and the use of electronics we are modeling for them. A Common Sense Media study of parents of children ages 8 to 18 found that parents spent nearly eight hours a day with screen media for personal use. Many parents also believed they were modeling healthy media and technology use for their children.
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are
always watching you.”
–Robert Fulgham
How parents shape the benefits of limiting screen time for kids
When I started teaching parenting classes a decade ago, I often heard complaints about the difficulty of prying preschool-age children away from their favorite television shows. Now, the complaints have shifted to the appetite for smartphones and tablets among 3- and 4-year-olds.
A 2017 Common Sense Media report found that the average amount of time children ages 8 and younger spent on mobile devices rose from 5 minutes a day in 2011 to 48 minutes a day in 2017.
This increase in electronics use has affected family behavior, with tantrums, power struggles and arguments often erupting over access to smartphones, tablets and other screens. Researchers writing in Pediatrics observed caregivers and children during meals and found that highly absorbed caregivers often responded harshly to child behavior.
The benefits of limiting screen time for kids go beyond reducing minutes online. They are also about giving children more chances to practice patience, conversation, self-control and independent play.
Concentrated looking and listening also allows us to pick up on subtle clues of facial expression,
body language and tone of voice, the kinds of cues that help us avoid the communication mistakes parents most commonly make with their kids.
How screens affect young children
When I started teaching parenting classes a decade ago, I often heard complaints about the difficulty of prying preschool-age children away from their favorite television shows. Now, the complaints have shifted to the appetite for smartphones and tablets among 3- and 4-year-olds.
A 2017 Common Sense Media report found that the average amount of time children ages 8 and younger spent on mobile devices rose from 5 minutes a day in 2011 to 48 minutes a day in 2017.
This increase in electronics use has affected family behavior, with tantrums, power struggles and arguments often erupting over access to smartphones, tablets and other screens. Researchers writing in Pediatrics observed caregivers and children during meals and found that highly absorbed caregivers often responded harshly to child behavior.
The benefits of limiting screen time for kids go beyond reducing minutes online. They are also about giving children more chances to practice patience, conversation, self-control and independent play.
Why the electronic pacifier can create bigger problems
Young children often fidget and fuss while waiting. They often get in our way while we are trying to finish tasks. These behaviors are not new. What is new is the common parental response of handing over a phone or tablet to keep the peace.
We tell ourselves it is the easiest way to buy time at a restaurant or get through a list at the supermarket, but this short-term fix can come with long-term consequences. It teaches children that whenever they are bored, frustrated or craving human interaction, they can be soothed with an electronic pacifier.
Another of the benefits of limiting screen time for kids is helping them learn how to wait, cope with boredom and handle frustration without needing a device right away.
Reliance on electronics as an instant fix can rob children of opportunities to build patience, frustration tolerance and the ability to distract and amuse themselves.
Generations of parents accomplished daily tasks without the aid of personal screens, and we can, too. With practice, it can become second nature to distract, amuse and involve children when they are bored, fussy or underfoot. These strategies require more patience and thought than simply handing over a device, but they can strengthen the parent-child bond and prevent habits that may be hard to break later.
Creating screen time limits you can live with
Most of us can remember a time when media had built-in limits. Movies, music and information could be accessed only at specific times and in specific places. Children growing up today have never known anything other than an on-demand, 24-hour media world in which the only limits are the ones families set.
Parents must provide guidance in setting and upholding reasonable boundaries. As with all limits, screen time rules are most effective when every member of the family takes part in planning them and when the rules apply fairly to everyone.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends creating a family media plan that fits each family’s routines and values. It also offers guidance on screen-free zones, media rules and parents modeling healthy digital habits.
The benefits of limiting screen time for kids are easier to see when the rules are realistic, consistent and shared by the whole family. Parents can lead the way by modeling the behavior they want to see in their children.
Simple ways to build healthier family screen habits
No electronics in bedrooms is a sensible place to start because it can improve sleep habits for adults and children. Some families create an electronics box where everyone parks devices an hour or two before lights out.
Instead of bringing phones or tablets to the dinner table, try conversation-starters, family games or questions that invite everyone to share something about the day. Make a habit of electronics-free one-on-one time. Even 15 to 20 minutes spent with each child, doing an activity of the child’s choosing and focusing entirely on that child, can make a meaningful difference.
Do what you can to create a clear separation between work time and quality family time. Setting aside a specific period of the evening to check messages gives parents a chance to disconnect, relax and fully engage with the people who most deserve their attention.
The benefits of limiting screen time for kids grow stronger when parents model the same habits they want children to follow. Set aside phones during meals, keep electronics out of bedrooms and create a short daily period of focused time with each child. Children need limits around technology, but they also need to see that the adults they love can put down their devices, look them in the eye and be fully present.
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