Screen-Free Kids

 

Kids spend too much time on screens! Screen time includes television, videos, computers and computer games and smartphones. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the White House Taskforce on Childhood Obesity recommend no screen time for kids under age two and less than two hours a day of educational programming for older kids.

But we know that many kids spend much more time than that in front of a screen. According to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, on any given day 29% of babies under the age of one are watching TV for 90 minutes and 23% of these kids even have a TV in their bedroom. Time with screens increases rapidly after the first year. Between age one and two, 64% are watching over two hours a day, and 36% have a TV in their bedroom! By the time kids are eight, they average about seven hours of screen time daily!

Excessive screen time is linked to increased BMI and childhood obesity, irregular sleep patterns, delayed language acquisition, and less time interacting with parents. Kids who reduce screen time are less likely to be obese, have a healthier diet, do better in school, and are more physically active.

As parents, we set limits and examples for screen time. Start reducing your screen time and replace it with healthy active behaviors.

A great place to start is to remove the TV from bedrooms. Make the bedroom a screen-free zone, by moving all TV’s and computers to a family room.

Set firm limits for TV watching, video games and phone and computer use.  You might want to track just how much you and your family use screens, and reduce usage for everyone. Track your use for a week, and don’t forget to add in smartphone use, computer use, gaming use and TV viewing. It can add up to a lot more hours than you realize.

Have a family conversation about how much screen time you have, and come up with ideas together to reduce your time. Find other activities to do together, think about outside games, family puzzle or game night, reading books or listening to music. There are loads of things to do together as a family instead of everyone plugged into a separate screen.

Pledge to turn off the TV during dinner. Make use of dinner time to talk about your day with your family.

When you do watch TV, be active during the time you spend watching. Do yoga, stretch, walk on a treadmill or in place. Have a family competition to see who can do the most sit-ups during a commercial break.

Try not to use screen devices as a reward or a punishment as this can make the devices seem even more important to your kids.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood encourages everyone to reduce screen time by having a screen free week. Their website, www.screenfree.org has tips and pledge cards you and your child can use to help turn off your screens for a week.  Try eliminating or reducing your screen time for a week.  You might just be pleasantly surprised how much fun you can have without screens.