Ten Tips to Reduce Screen Time Exposure in Your Child

Babyment

Without parental guidance, many children could spend hours behind a screen. As reported in The Straits Time, a 2015 study published in the Early Childhood Education Journal showed that children under the age of seven in Singapore spend at least an hour a day on smartphones and touchscreen tablets.

Although some screen time can be educational, it is easy to go overboard. Some caregivers also report using screen time to 'babysit' their young children to provide them time for daily chores.

Why is too much screen time harmful?

Behavioral problems: Short attention span, aggression, violence, bullying, and risk-taking behaviors are increased in all age groups.

Irregular sleep: Difficulty falling asleep, disturbed sleep routines, and nightmares in all age groups lead to sleep deprivation.

Language, cognitive and motor delays: Excessive baby TV exposure has been linked to language, cognitive and motor delays in young children. A study, done by the researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital, shows that screen time was linked to poorer connectivity in the brain areas that govern language and cognitive control.

Obesity: Poor eating habits and reduction in physical activity contribute to unhealthy weight gain in all age groups.

Recommendations on screen time for children

The 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) media policy statement1 recommends the following:

1. In children younger than 18 months, avoid screen use.

2. For children 18 to 24 months of age, parents help to choose high-quality programmes. Watch it with your child to interactively discuss what you are seeing. Avoid solo screen use in this age group.

3. For children, 2 to 5 years of age, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programmes, view with your children, help children understand what they are seeing, and help them apply what they learn to the world around them.

4. No screen use 1 hour before bedtime and remove devices from bedrooms before bed.

Tips to reduce screen time

A study found that 63% of the participants exceeded a recommend two hours or less of screen time per day. It found that when participants met the guidelines, their "global cognition" improved. "Global cognition" includes memory, attention, processing speed and language.It is therefore important for parents to reduce screen time exposure in their kids.

Below are tips that can help to limit screen time of your child.

1. Agree within your family and other caregivers about your child's maximum daily screen time and stick to it.

2.Set a Good Example. Limit your own screen time especially when interacting with your child, and avoid watching or using your mobile phone.

3. Make limit a regular part of screen use. When you pass your mobile phone to your child, tell him to return you after thirty minutes, for example.

When rules are clear and consistent, you can avoid a daily headache when you tell your kid to turn off the television.

Do Explain to your child about what consequences there would be if the limit is exceeded.

4. Eliminate unnecessary background screen time. Turn off the TV to reduce sensory overload and distractions to your child's attention.

5. Discourage repetitive viewings of the same show. Turn the screen off after one episode of a children's programme.

6. Help your kids find other ways to have fun. Watching TV can become a habit, making it easy to forget what else is out there. Give your kids ideas and/or alternatives, such as playing outside, getting a new hobby, or learning a sport.

7. Do not let your child eat in front of a screen device. This includes both having a child watch a screen to eat their regular meal, as well as snacking on unhealthy foods while watching TV.

8. Whenever possible, try to avoid using screen devices as the only way to calm your child. Although there are intermittent times (eg, medical procedures, airplane flights) when they may be useful as a soothing strategy, using screen devices to calm could lead to problems with your child developing the emotional regulation.

9. Stop all screen time 1 hour before bedtime. This allows your child's sleep hormone (melatonin) to rise naturally. It also gives you time to do a bedtime routine with your child to promote parent-child bonding and interaction during bedtime stories or lullabies.

10. Make tech work for you. Use programmes and apps that you can set to turn off computers, tablets or smartphones after a preset amount of time.