How to develop healthy screen time habits
Developing healthy screen time habits while they’re young will help children and teenagers make better choices about how to use their free time when they’re older.
You can help by:
- Setting screen time guidelines according to the ages of children in your family
- Leading by example, such as limiting your own screen time
- Offering variety, making sure you have a range of activities and objects to entertain and stimulate your children so they don’t look to the screen so much.
- Being selective about what your younger children watch or play on the computer, and taking an interest in what your older children are doing online.
- Keeping TVS and computers out of bedrooms and instead only allowing kids to use them in family spaces.
- Turning the TV off before school and at dinnertime
TV and DVDs
When young children watch TV and DVDs, they don’t see the same things adults do. Children can be negatively affected by scary, violent or sexualised images, as well as advertising. Even simply having the TV on in the background can interfere with a child’s ability to concentrate on things that are beneficial for their development, such as creative or physical play.
Read more: The role of parents on the internet
