Screen time during lockdown

In an article I posted a couple of months ago, I highlighted the American Pediatric Association’s guidelines on advised screen time for young children. Since the start of lockdown though, with the onset of distance learning especially, screen time has exploded for most of us. I hear many parents asking this question: “How much is too much?”

I feel that there are two sides to this coin.

Firstly, we are in a global pandemic. We are in an unprecedented crisis and it is a time of survival for us all. It is not ‘business as usual’ and so flexibility, adaptability and a gentle approach are needed. We need to ‘ditch the techno guilt’ as Dr Kristy Goodwin says and allow some screen time into the day to help us cope. Most working-from-home parents find it impossible to get through the day without the help of screens, and right now that is ok. Our children will not break if they watch a little more than usual and we can rebalance once we find our feet again.

On the flip side, many parents report negative side effects of screen time and so managing it well becomes part of our survival. There is no use in using a tool to cope if it only makes matters worse. And…this ‘crisis mode’ is beginning to feel more and more normal, so healthy boundaries are also the order of the day. If you fall into this second category of parents, I want to help.

Young children, especially, can become quite easily over stimulated by screens. Screens & their content provide fast moving, colorful and interesting images every second that keep them transfixed. Trying to put an end to that can sometimes feel like we are attacking them - and in fact it feels almost exactly like that for them. They become hyper aroused, causing blood to flow away from their frontal lobe (responsible for thinking) and literally get shifted into a primitive physical mode. They go into a flight and fight mode and when we oppose that, it activates tantrums, disengagement, emotional dysregulation and a whole lot of unpleasantness.

Some children can make these shifts more easily than others and they don’t all have negative reactions to screens. But here are some really practical tips to help parents with younger children in selecting screen time boundaries:

• Spend some time deciding what you feel comfortable with when it comes to screen time, and establish “family rules” around this. Try to balance the real world pandemic and your needs as a family by having the guidelines in the back of your head as a guide (i.e. don’t beat yourself up over giving your 6 year old 2 hours of TV today, but try not to do more than that or to do it every day).

• Use YouTube Kids instead of regular YouTube so that you can avoid adverts that might be of questionable content. Netflix is preferable in this regard as there are no adverts.

• Try to choose content that is educational - that they can learn something from (this doesn’t have to be nursery rhymes/counting etc., it can also be shows that show how to solve problems like in Curious George, for instance).

• Avoid shows you know nothing about.

• Choose shows with shorter episodes that help you to control how much your children watch in one sitting (e.g. 20 min shorts instead of hour long episodes or movies). When an episode ends, it is a natural pause and can be easier for children to transition.

• Try to break sessions down into chunks rather than long stints at a time (i.e. two half hour sessions in a day rather than 1 one hour session).

• Set an alarm on your phone and use this to mark the end of a session for you and your children.

• Establish boundaries with your kids - e.g. when the alarm goes off we are heading outside - and then be consistent with this to develop a healthy routine.

• Try to avoid screens at least 2 hours before bed time as a general rule.

• Try to avoid using screen time as a reward as far as possible.

• Try to avoid using screen time during meal times.

• Try to avoid being legalistic or disapproving of TV as this can develop sneaky behaviours to get their screen time in.

• When possible, make screen time something you do together (e.g. snuggle up with popcorn and watch something together).

Here are some practical tips on how to navigate screen-to-reality transitions:

• Set alarms to mark the end of screen time and once your kids buy into that, they will find it easier to transition when they hear that alarm go. Counting down also helps - “Ok, you have 5 mins left now….Ok, 2 mins left now..”

• Transition to something nice and soothing - snacks, a game, story time with you, a dance party etc.

• Spend a moment asking what they watched, what they learnt, what did they enjoy/not enjoy and so on.

• Try to observe signs of overstimulation and then provide an appropriate counter activity for your child - like water play (if they need to be soothed) or roughhousing (if they are fired up and need to get some energy out).

• Try to establish a healthy habit of going outside for equal amounts of time after screen time for some stimulating green time (nature play).

• Try scheduling screen time at specific times of the day so it is part of the routine. This is especially helpful for online schooling so that it gets done at the same time daily. Routine helps children to cope with transitions and expectations.

• If tantrums persist, avoid screen time unless absolutely necessary. If you find your child is needing to do school online and is not coping with it, request print outs for a week to see if this makes a difference.

Encouraging alternatives is always a helpful strategy, but during a pandemic this might not be something you feel you have the energy for. Be kind to yourself.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and join the conversation with you. Get in touch if you have any thoughts to share.