‘How to reduce screen time’ is every millennial mom’s stress point. With everyone having their own devices it gets difficult to regulate screen time. If your child is glued to the TV or the mobile phone for long hours you must work towards making few lifestyle changes. If you want them to Grow Right, try to reduce their screen time and dependency on technology – less screen time more green time.
Why Screen Time is harmful for kids? What is the situation in India?
Addiction to screen – be it TV, mobile phones, tablets, playing games or browsing social media for long hours – all affect growth and development in kids. It can lead to a disorder that is also referred to as SSD or Screen Dependency Disorder that involves sleep problems, behavioural problems, obesity, aggression and violence, and much more. In a study of 10,000 Urban School Children in Delhi, India, by AIIMS doctors it was established that in 40% cases myopia progressed as a result of excessive screen time. Practise ‘less screen time’ rules right from elementary school age.
How to reduce Screen Time in Young Kids? Less screen time more green time #GrowRight
Parenting is not an easy task, a lot of times, parents hand a device to their kids to engage them, or keep them quiet. But that’s the onset of addiction. According to reports Indian parents are nurturing screen addiction in their kids by handing over a smart screen due to their busy schedules and over protective approach towards physical safety. You, as a parent need to make these lifestyle changes to make less screen rime a reality. The best thing I have done for my son is to hide the iPad!
#1 Establish Family Rules – No screen zones
Create family rules and no screen zones in the house. When you sit together at the dinner table, do not allow phones or iPads. Lead by example, because kids pick up what they see. Family times must not get overridden with technology.
#2 Spend Time with kids, engage them in activities
Spend time with your kids by being physically present with them. When they grow up, they don’t remember gifts, they remember the time you spent and memories you created. Engage kids in art and craft, outdoor plays, pick up a sport you both can do together. Enrolling kids for extra-curricular classes and packing up their schedule will do more harm than good. Let them develop interest by trying out different activities.
#3 Involve them in house hold chores
In India, we hardly involve kids in daily chores. It’s better to make kids self-sufficient from an early age. Involve kids in simple chores like, placing their clothes in laundry basket, arranging their toys, making their own beds. I love to involve my son in the kitchen – doing simple stuffs like getting vegetables from the refrigerator, shelling peas, beating eggs, etc. I also let him mix his PediaSure in the milk. I have kept the bottle at a place from where he can pick it up and he scoops out the powder, adds it in his milk and mixes with a spoon.
#4 Involve them in gardening or adopt a pet – teach empathy
When you teach kids how to take care of plants or a pet you are teaching them empathy. These are values that a book can’t teach you. Let them help you watering your plants or give a shower to the pet.
#5 Monitor the screen time
Researchers ask parents to keep screen time to one hour or less for children aged 2-5 years old. Maintain a screen time schedule and once you have set a limit don’t let kids extra time over the limit. Maintain passwords and use parental control.
#6 Have story time sessions
Storytelling is an amazing medium to teach kids. Story time sessions need not be limited to bed time stories only. Make stories about their daily life that will have lessons. Want them to grow right – encourage kids to tell stories, this improves their original thoughts.
Parents, set good examples for your kids to reduce screen time. The less time you spend on screen in front of them, the less they’ll want to watch something. There’s a surge in mobile phone usage in kids these days – it’s not just harmful for their development, it involves security risk too. Remember, less screen time, more green time. What do you do to reduce the screen time for your kids.
25 comments
Very true. Lifestyle change it all it takes. Very useful tips.
Lovely and useful pints tina, I think a few minutes a day TV is ok but kids should be doing many other things to learn and grow as you have rightly said.
So true..I to follow strick rule with my kid for the same and now she knows when she will get to watch her cartoons on either TV or mobile and other time she does not even ask for it.
I liked the title of your post immensely. And what you trying to stress upon is so important in our age and time.
I like the idea of no screen zones, i will personally try this out to reduce my screen time 🙂
Limiting screen time to ensure proper growth and development of kids is important. Engaging the kids in meaningful activities like gardening, playing outside, helping in household chores are helpful and useful tips.
Great tips, some tips we are following already and reading session we will start .
that’s really true no screen time is really important these days for kids and we elders a well write up thank you for sharing this wonderful post.
All super helpful tips for dropping screen time. The best is to not use screens yourself in front of your children.
Thanks for the detailed informative article. I am surely going to add household chores to keep the kids happy and set family rules.
It’s really important to create a balance in all..they should understand the limit of Every activities like how much screen time.
We have also stopped screen time at our family place because my husband don’t like seeing TV or mobile while eating food so special during dinners and lunch will never see any mobile. Kids Learn whatever we do
I agree, we too try to limit our screen time to the minimal possible. I feel there are a lot of things which kids may learn through educative video and completely vanishing the screens won’t help but a limited and controlled screen time is a must.
It is necessary for the entire family to follow the same rules with less screen time.
Limiting screen time and increased playtime is important for kids development .
I think it is very important to limit the time with electronic devices for children and adults and find the desire to touch a ball or read a book.
These are all excellent tips. Busy kids have less time to stare at their screens. I also think it builds character to do chores and it’s family strengthening to spend time together.
I’m all for any tips that help to reduce screen time in kids!
Kids all wear spectaculars in this era and it’s a pity to see that. I hope more parents see your post and reduce the time for gadgets and spend more time on other activities.
As we all know that this is the era that technology are so famous and because of that it’s really hard for us parent to control the screen time of our young kids. So, thank you for sharing these excellent tips with us it’s really helpful.
Great advice. I”m pretty big on only using screen time as absolutely necessary; usually around travel days or when I need kids to be in a restaurant or something for an extended period of time. Or super long car rides when I know they’ll be restless anyways. Today is one of those days; wish me luck!
Now that my daughter is in school, she rarely asks to play on her kindle or on my phone anymore. But, I did use a lot of these tips and tricks before.
Some great suggestions here, sometimes we have TV while eating and I should make sure no screen time during meal times.
Great tips! I feel like every child and home dynamic requires a different level of attention with monitoring screen time. My two daughters are very different and both enjoy their tablets in different ways.
What an important subject to talk about. We definitely have screen free zones in our house and limit to 1 hr a day!