Screen Time Limits For Kids

It is wild how different kids are. Not just kids that are from different parents, but just your own kids if you have more than one. One of your kids may not have much interest in the television while the other child simply refuses to do anything else. One kid may love to read and the other may loathe the thought of picking a book up. For whatever reason, kids have different interests and emotions, even siblings.

When it comes to screen time, your doctor is going to tell you to limit the amount of time that your child spends staring at the screen. They’ll ask you at your child’s wellness visits how much screen time per day your child gets and they’ll encourage you to keep it under a certain number (usually one hour to start and then it goes up to two hours). Depending on your circumstances, you’ll think this is easy or hard.

If your child isn’t interested in screens and watching TV or playing video games all day, then consider yourself pretty lucky assuming that they entertain themselves in some other way. If they simply are clinging to you the whole time, then that’s also a difficult situation to find yourself in. For the rest of us that have kids that want to watch as much TV as they can, we have to find a balance.

The easiest solution is to simply let your child have as much screen time as they want. This may actually be an alright solution if your child is good at self regulating. There are some kids that will go through phases where they’ll watch TV for awhile, but then they’ll lose interest and move on to other activities such as building LEGO models, or trying to solve other problems. If your kid regulates in this way, then you may not need to intervene.

However, there are some kids that will simply watch TV, play video games, or spend all day on the computer if you don’t set some type of limits for them on their screen time. For younger children, it’s usually easier to implement screen time limits as your child will be more inclined to listen to you and follow your instructions. As they grow older, it will become more difficult to enforce the rules.

In terms of the limits you set, you’ll need to decide on that number for yourself. If you simply can’t unglue your child from the TV when you ask them to do something, you may need to be more strict when they can watch TV. If your child is simply bored, and thus watching TV, then you may be well served by simply finding other activities that they can enjoy - you may have to enjoy those activities with them.

One step you can take is to set no screen time hours/minutes in the home where no one is allowed to use their screen. This will force you to find other activities that you can enjoy together. This is good for your child, but it’s also good for you. It allows you to turn off your devices and spend time together. Whether it be around meal times or simply some other time in the day, it’s a great way to explore other fun ways to spend time together.

Screen time limits will be necessary for some kids, but not for others. If you need to implement those limits, find other activities that your child can participate in that will keep them engaged.