How Much Screen Time for Kids?...

[Jake72]

Benefit - people mention the educational factor of TV. We put on a DVD that suits them and the actually watch it. Once it's over I observe they play and act out what they have seen. Digest it and absorb it fully. What they watch seems to really go in. (although studies have shown it takes much longer for kids to learn something from a TV than it does if show by a person in real time).

My children will watch educational TV over most other channels when they actually watch the TV. They love learning about history and science, they are both visual learners and retain the knowledge easier when they hear it on TV and see it acted out as apposed to in a school setting. I don't have to make TV a treat to get them watch these shows. I find it silly "they" do studies on kids and then announce that is how all children learn, it is simply not true. Every person is different and people learn in different ways.

Still holding my opinion and question that developmentally we might be stunting our children's growth with too much screen time and I can see from these posts that I'm a lone voice in a crowd of media imput !!

My children are teenagers, they are not and never were stunted due to TV. My son has dyslexia, that is not something I could have avoided by not allowing him to watch TV, it is something he was born with. When he finally did learn how to read he read just about as often as he actually sat down at watched TV. My daughter doesn't have any LDs and never had any sort of delays and is doing wonderfully in school.

 

[Johndoe]

my 3 year old watches 0-3 shows through-out the day...and lots of those shows are only 15 minutes. and because i know his focus is on many other things and doesnt watch any some days- there are times when he just wants to relax and watch a few in a row. as long as i see a healthy balance going on; its all good

 

[Oblongship]

How much screen time for kids? I just did a google search and was amazed at the concensus is about 2 hours a day should be max.

When a toddler maybe having a 2 hour nap. Up at 7 and Bed at 7 for example that's 20% of his or her day in front of a screen. By the time they are 10 nearly a 1/4 of a child's life might have been sitting statically in front of moving images.

Developmentally this shocks me. A child learns about the world first through his eyes..he/she tracks the world through following objects and the people around them with their eyes. Then the head starts to move, gaining strength because what the object the baby is tracking with his eyes makes them want to follow it closer with his or her head. Next comes the reaching or grabbing, the engagement with the object (mummy's glasses or necklace) the toy on the floor, the food on the plate. Following eye, hand comes the rest of the body, taking years of continuting developmental growth into a fully co-ordinated adult.

Are we stunting this growth by sitting our children in front of Televisions or computers ? Is it healthy that all engagement with the screen is with static eyes, still bodies, or very little hand gestures...? How do they continue to fully develop their co-ordination and engagement with the world if they are only passively watching it on a 2D interface? That's the physical side.

Emotionally, I've yet to meet a child who has had very little exposure to TV who has not been completely freaked out and scared by what they see there...even with many seemingly harmless shows. Are we as adults who have seen so much violence and loudness on TV unable to register for our children the craziness of what is on the screen in front of them ?

I ask these points as questions for clearly I have a very strong opinion and have a 1/2 hour screen time limit per week for my kids ( which admitedly does change in the holidays) but I wanted to open this discussion here...what benefit does the TV bring to their development that could not be found by healthy engagement with a book, the natural environment, you and other meaningful adults in their lives?

I think educational shows are great but nothing substitutes spending 1 on 1 time with your kids.

 

[Stephano]

This is a constant argument between my wife and me. She thinks the television makes a just fine baby-sitter. But I can't stand this new "Kids" shows. The Sprout channel is decent for toddlers, but I'm constantly telling my girls to turn off the garbage they are watching on the Disney channel. When I consider the amount of programs that I approve of my girls watching versus the ones I don't approve of, it makes me want to drop cable service all together.

 

[Noclevername]

As I stated in another post, I am not a parent, yet, but I have my niece a lot and it might become a more permanent thing. I hate TV. I can't stand the constand blaring and I really hate how the commercials are louder than the program. I also hate the flashing of the screen. When she is at my house, she only watches an hour if even that much. I will DVR Sesame Street or Word World or something like that and I let her watch it when she first gets up in the morning while she's still waking up.

And she is good about playing and finding things to do so she really doesn't miss it. She never asks if she can watch, I usually am the one who offers.

 

[Dagwood]

This is a very big concern for me. I have 2 older children who are in post-secondary education and younger daughter who is almost 13. Of course, I have limited control over the older 2, but I worry that they have substituted a virtual life for a real one. I would say that they spend in virtually every waking hour in front of the computer screen in the evenings and in excess of 10 hours a day when they don't have school. Neither date, they get very little exercise and they rarely venture outdoors. They do get together with friends occasionally but that often involves being in front of a computer or television screen to watch a movie. I try to tell them about balance, and that this is a time in their life to get out and experience life (in a healthy way) but they just think I'm getting on their case. They say they are happy with the way things are so they see little reason why they should change.

When my son was younger, around 13, we tried placing limits on computer time,but found out years later that he had been setting his clock for 3:00 a.m. to be gaming and then went back to bed after a couple of hours.

My youngest daughter does have a little more balance as she plays team sports and gets outside more. But I fear that she will eventually develop the same patterns.

It is especially hard to limit, because now schools often assign work that requires a computer. We've even considered taking an internet break for part of the summer, but the internet providers don't make provisions for short disruptions in service.

Any suggestions? Should I just "back off" and stop offering advice? Have any of you found effective ways to deal with this?

 

[buddylovebabi]

This is a very big concern for me. I have 2 older children who are in post-secondary education and younger daughter who is almost 13. Of course, I have limited control over the older 2, but I worry that they have substituted a virtual life for a real one. I would say that they spend in virtually every waking hour in front of the computer screen in the evenings and in excess of 10 hours a day when they don't have school. Neither date, they get very little exercise and they rarely venture outdoors. They do get together with friends occasionally but that often involves being in front of a computer or television screen to watch a movie. I try to tell them about balance, and that this is a time in their life to get out and experience life (in a healthy way) but they just think I'm getting on their case. They say they are happy with the way things are so they see little reason why they should change.

When my son was younger, around 13, we tried placing limits on computer time,but found out years later that he had been setting his clock for 3:00 a.m. to be gaming and then went back to bed after a couple of hours.

My youngest daughter does have a little more balance as she plays team sports and gets outside more. But I fear that she will eventually develop the same patterns.

It is especially hard to limit, because now schools often assign work that requires a computer. We've even considered taking an internet break for part of the summer, but the internet providers don't make provisions for short disruptions in service.

Any suggestions? Should I just "back off" and stop offering advice? Have any of you found effective ways to deal with this?

if it is a family computer, or a computer YOU bought, set up an administer profile on it, make sure the password is something your children would NEVER guess. (Which means NO birthdays, NO special dates, and NONE of your favorite, or even kind of liked objects/past times. make it something difficult like randome letters or your great great aunts address, somthing the children CANNOT figure out.) after that you can actually set it up so each child (or just the one if it is a one child computer and not a family comp) has set time limits. you can do this through parental controls, it lets you set up times for when the computer is allowed to be in use, and when it is NOT allowed to be in use. say have it available for 7 am, to 9pm, or whenever YOU feel they should be allowed to get on.

If they don't get their homework done in that time? too bad, they should have been using their time to do homework rather than play on the internet, one or two failed assignments and they might just use their time more wisely.

if the child bought the laptop themselves, i see little you can do about it. Because it was purchased with their own money, you will have a very hard time coercing them to let you put controls on it.

 

[Dagwood]

Thank you for the reply. It may be the way to go with my youngest and I will look into it. The oldest 2 do have their own laptops which they need for school. The older 2 are also now adults (19 and 21), so I have limited control over them other than to offer advice. However, that doesn't stop me from being concerned about their lifestyle. They are both overweight and most of that is due to inactivity as our family generally prepares healthy foods. I try to explain to them that these young years are precious and that they should make the most of them. However, I don't want to cross the line between offering helpful, caring parental advice to nagging and interfering in their choices. There are some small signs that they may be listening as they are making a little attempt to get more exercise, but I don't think I'm anywhere close to convincing them that, say, 10-12 hours of computer on Saturday is too much.

It's very frustrating. But maybe I have to accept that I can only do what I can do.

 

[Seattlepapa]

We're pretty tight about screen time at our house but our kids have adjusted well (they're adopted, two of the three adopted at ages 9 and 13). We have select tv shows that we watch as a family during the week (typically a single show for about an hour--maybe three shows a week). We do Friday and Saturday night movies/DVD and they have an allotted amount of time per week that they can play video games (three hours total, handheld game time counts too). No video games during the week. This allows for after school sports or active play and evening homework, reading, etc.)

When our youngest was really little (pre school) we let him watch morning PBS cartoons for about an hour or so and we had some learning computer games.

I was a total tv kid growing up, so sometimes I feel like we're too rigid, but I know that our boys came into our home really struggling in school and all about violent video games (any video games really; they had free reign at their foster home) and they adjusted. It also has made them stronger students and has forced us to be more interactive with them to do activties. A good thing!

 

[techdad]

My 3 year old son watches max 2 hoursTV a day, splitted around 15-20 minutes sessions. The good thing is that he turns of the TV himself about 15 minutes.(hopefully good!)

 

[stillme]

You just have to stress the importance of not spending all their time in front of the television and regulate it, that's all. Like with my son, I would say, "Alright, wrap it up. You've spent enough time in front of the tube. It's time to go use your imagination and do something constructive." You bring them up with that kind of mentality and they know it isn't normal to spend hours and hours in front of the TV. My son will shut it off on his own and go outside or go do something else now.

 

[HappyParent]

10hrs max

 

[jamieFL]

I think it's less concerning about the length of screen time as it is what they are watching! IMO

 

[Ginger Ann]

You know, I have less problems with them watching TV and more time with them wanting to be on the internet! I

 

[lederstol]

In my house its, number of hours spent reading=number of hours to play games and watch tv.

 

[betsillds]

Im really enjoying these forums on parenting. I am working on my own advice site. Please feel free to come by and check us out at

newmomsanddads.net

 

[Christopher]

I agree with Superrod, in many ways it depends on the child. Ever notice how deeply some kids get into the shows? That's a warning sign.

But I think that when the TV is used as a babysitter it can get way out of hand.

Also see my post #54 under: Why is teenage pregnancy cool? Here is the direct link: http://www.parentingforums.org/showpost.php?p=123595&postcount=54[/url]

 

[lodestone123]

I actually think you shouldn't worry about this too much or try to measure it in hours. Keep them involved in sports, outside activities and engage their minds. My teen son is on his computer when he is not out with his friends or working. My teen daughter is on facebook while she studies - is that bad? I don't know. I think our kids think differently now and can do many things at one time - unless you see their marks slipping or their social skills being affected, don't spend too much time on it. Really, there will be bigger issues to focus on ...

 

[Christopher]

While I agree with you Lodestone, it is with reservations. I don't really think
kids are any different than they were 10-20-30 years ago. The circumstances
are different but they make the same mistakes and have the same lack of
judgment we all did. They just don't know that, and we need to use the "20/20"
vision of hindsight to guide them.

You are right that more important things are coming, but how we deal with
the 'little' things often creates the framework for dealing with the major issues.
With my kids I learned the hard way to beware the slippery slope of letting some
things go because they were "no big deal."

I just had the discussion with my grandson about this. He had observed that I
often gave him a hard time about "little" things. As I told him, that is because
by attending to the small stuff, the big stuff is handled correctly, since they know
what is expected of them.

 

[lodestone123]

You have made some good points too Christopher. It is always a fine line around what you make a big deal about and what you let go. They do say don't sweat the small stuff but is it small? The important things will be different for everyone. I have a friend who has the greatest, most polite kids. When they do something she doesn't like she simply clears her throat and changes the environment/subject/focus of the negative situation. I try to learn from her. There are no head to head arguments or not many. She leads by example and keeps them very busy and focused on positive activities. If we focus on the negative - it will become the battle ground.