What is screen time?

Screen time is a term used to refer to how long you spend on a device with a screen. A majority of our screen time comes from using smartphones, tablets and laptops.

The recommended amount of screen time for kids ages 2-5 is one hour per day. That’s pretty tricky! Things like the pandemic and switching to online schooling have greatly increased screen time use, making the goal of only one hour even harder to stick to.

Despite higher amounts of screen time for kids becoming part of our daily lives due to the changing nature of our world, there are many ways to ensure your child is using this time to its full potential while still finding ways to detach from technology for child development. We have some parenting tips on how to help your little one use their screen time for kids for both personal entertainment and productivity in a smart, safe, and healthy way.

Why is screen time important?

Social interaction

Because of our ever-changing world, devices like tablets, smartphones, and laptops can allow us to connect to our friends and family who may not be close to us. Planning things like a game night with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who you haven’t seen in a while is a great way to have screen time for kids in a productive way that benefits child development.

Children can also use screens to connect with classmates from online preschool outside of the classroom. Socialization is critical for child development, and the ability to spend time virtually with classmates from online preschool who may not be able to have an in-person playdate is a great way to nurture relationships and promote screen time for kids that is not just watching a television show or YouTube Kids (though that also has a time and place!)

Learning

Many online preschool education programs require sitting in front of a laptop or tablet, making it harder to avoid screen time for kids. However, this is another form of productive screen time beneficial to child development. After class is done, there is also a multitude of exciting educational websites, classes, and videos they can explore. While they are no longer in their preschool online lesson, they can still have screen time that they choose while also bettering their minds and teaching them new skills and ideas great for childhood development!

Work

Aside from children, adults are also using laptops and tablets for work more and more. Screens allow you to take meetings, work on important projects, and connect with coworkers faster than ever. While this may not seem like it affects screen time for kids, it is important to think about how screens affect us all — for both the good and the not so good — and how our day to day lives can impact our little one’s child development from them simply watching us.

How to detach from screens?

After the day is done, it is hard to not just move on to using screens for things like watching television and playing video games to de-stress. Instead of defaulting to this for downtime, take a break from screens by doing things like playing outside with your little one, reading books, doing DIY arts and crafts, or just spending time talking to your child about how their day was and what they learned. This not only breaks up the course of the day between work/school and free time, but also makes screens something that your child does not feel the need to rely on for fun.

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