Author: Jennifer Paget
Aren’t we all struggling with this?
Let’s face it: the special screens in our lives are very absorbing and sometimes downright addictive.
They disrupt the flow of connectedness with our loved ones. They may get in the way of taking care of ourselves and meeting our responsibilities.
On the other hand, for parents they are essential tools in our modern world and to children they often seem essential. When schools were closed, they actually were.
What to do? Here are the five main considerations for successfully reducing screen time:
- Understand your child’s development and identify what daily experiences they need to grow and thrive.
- Build up a variety of alternative activities that interest, engage, and nourish your child’s development. This takes time and practice. Partner with your child until they have mastered the activities enough to do on their own or with other children.
- Decide what kind of screen time limits are needed and what rules you will put in place.
- Communicate the new rules to your child. Plan how you will enforce them with great consistency. Anticipate the situations that will tempt you to bend the rules. Bending the rules will work against you in the long run because your child will not understand what a rule is. If you won’t be able to resist temptation, change the rules to allow for those situations.
- Plan for your whole family. It is near impossible to enforce limits on an electronics-dependent child while everyone else continues to use them. Not only are the electronics a temptation to the dependent child, they steal the attention of “using” family members, leaving the child on their own, with no one to play with.
