Now that school is out are you finding that your child or teenager is watching too much TV or playing on the Xbox, tablet or phone constantly? In today’s world of technology it can be difficult for parents to limit screen time without creating an argument.
Here are some tips to limit screen time without stress:
Keep your child active. Involve them in sports throughout the summer. Take the family on hikes, sign them up for soccer or dance camps, and go to the pool or beach for swimming. Send them outside to play or ride their bikes.
Turn the TV off during meal time. Make meal time about the family and sit together and keep the TV, phones and tablets off. No texting during meals at home or at a restaurant.
Have your children earn their screen time. No TV until chores or homework is done.
Turn the TV off at a set time each night. Kids enjoy habit and routine. If you create a routine where the TV goes off every night at a certain time they will adjust.
Put a parental timer on the Xbox. Make the timer be the bad guy, not you.
Keep TV’s and Computers out of the children’s bedrooms. Keep their bedrooms for sleeping, not gaming or watching TV.
Make your child take breaks after an hour and give them some activity to do to earn screen time for later in the day.
“Over the past five years, kids aged 8 to 18 have increased the amount of time they spend plugged into media by 1 hour and 17 minutes a day, up from 6 hours and 21 minutes to 7 hours and 38 minutes,” according to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The time your child or teenager spends in front of the screen, the more inactive they are. We have to remind our kids there is a world outside of the digital world.
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