How do you keep track of your child’s screen time? This article has a primer on how to manage your child’s media and screen time.
Monitoring a child’s screen time may be difficult with displays nearly everywhere. To make matters more complicated, some screen time may be instructive and beneficial to children’s social development. So, how do you monitor the screen time of your children? Here’s a primer on how to manage your child’s media and screen time.
Overexposure to poor-quality programs and excessive screen time has been related to:
- Obesity
- Inadequate sleep patterns and sleep deprivation
- Problems with behavior
- Delays in social skill, and language development
- Violence
- Attention issues
- Less time spent learning
Remember that unstructured activity is more beneficial to a young child’s growing brain than electronic media. Kids, who are less than 2 year old, are more likely to learn when they interact and play with their parents, siblings, other children, and adults. By the age of two, children may benefit from some forms of screen time, such as programming that includes music, movement, and storytelling.
You may assist your youngster grasp what he or she is seeing and apply it in real life by watching together. However, passive screen time should not be substituted for reading, playing, or problem solving.
Making Screen Time Regulations
When introducing digital media to youngsters between the ages of 18 and 24 months, make sure it’s of excellent quality and prevent solo media usage. Limit your child’s screen time to one hour per day of high-quality programs.
A one-size-fits-all strategy is no longer effective as your child develops. You must determine how much media your child may use each day and what is suitable.
Consider applying the same guidelines to your child’s actual and virtual worlds. Play with your child, teach compassion, be involved, and be aware of your child’s pals and what he or she does with them.
Remember that the quality of material your child is exposed to is more significant than the type of device or the quantity of time spent.
To make sure that your kids have quality screen time:
Before enabling your youngster to see or play with programs, games, or applications, preview them. Common Sense Media, for example, includes programs ratings and evaluations to assist you evaluate what is acceptable for your child’s age. Better yet, let your youngster watch, play, or utilize them.
Instead of merely pressing and swiping or gazing at the computer, look for interactive activities that can engage your youngster.
To prevent or filter online material, use parental controls. Keep an eye on your youngster during screen time so you can oversee his or her actions.
Ask your child on a frequent basis what shows, games, and applications he or she has used during the day. When watching television with your child, talk about what you’re viewing and teach your youngster about advertising and ads.
Also, fast-paced programming, which young children have difficulty understanding, violent content, and apps with a lot of distracting information should be avoided. Remove advertising from applications because young children have difficulty distinguishing between advertisements and true information.
