How much time should my child be spending on my phone/tablet?

[Mumcjw119]

I was having a conversation with another parent in my son's playground recently about how much time we let our child play with games on screens. They said they never let them use them at all... I do.

What is a good amount of time for my kids one is 3, one is 8, to be spending on games on the tablet or my phone? When I am busy and we don't have planned activities, I try to find good games to distract them.

How much time, honestly, do you allow your kid on these games every day? Thank you so much!

My two youngest are 6&8 and go on their tablet after school for 30-45 mins whilst I’m busy and then another hour before bed if they aren’t watching a film or playing a game.

Sometimes they don’t go on them for a few days especially my youngest as they love to play with their toys. Sometimes if I’m really busy they go on them for hours.

My older children are glued to their iPhones, iPads, ps or Xbox.

As long as all homework, revision and chores are done I don’t let it cause an issue. We do love our family time too.

What works for one family won’t work for others.

At 3 mine didn’t have any time at all. The only screens they had up to about the age of 4/5 was the TV. I just never found a need for it.
My youngest is now 8 and she spends maybe an hour a day (on average) playing in her switch or the computer.
I have never allowed my two to have access to my phone. It’s not a toy.

At 3 years not at all. At 8, rarely but useful in places where you need to keep them reasonably quiet and still.

They'll pick up all the screen skills they need like blotting paper when they're a few years older than that and chances are that you'll be turfing them away from devices the whole bloody time. So getting into habits of doing other stuff is important, because if they don't have a bank of good experiences of enjoying other activities then it can be much harder to keep a balance later.

Try not to worry about it too much. Besides, what they told you may not be the whole truth.

My DS is 6, some days he's on it all day (eg when he's off sick and I'm wfh). Other days he doesn't touch it because we're busy / out / doing other stuff.

He also uses it for most of his homework.

We don't give him an allocation of X hours per day as this doesn't work for us as a family, but it may work for others. We do take care to switch off all screens before bedtime so he can have an hour or so without it, and we do balance it out over the week so I try not to worry too much

DH's ex wife regularly has the 5 year old on his tablet for 14+ hours a day (we have an app that shows it's usage that came when we put parental controls on it because she hadnt done so), so I'd say you're doing alright in comparison!

Not at all give them toys.

My teens live on there gadgets 🙈 joking about not at all. Whenever you want quiet OP.

My DS is 5. He has about 30 minutes of TV ( and adverts) in the morning whilst getting dressed like Paddington and Paw patrol or some music videos on YouTube on the tv. Then after his snack and a little chat we do his reading book after school then he can have screen time or games on his tablet. He usually has 4.30pm ish - dinner at 6 so 1.5 hours. Total 2 hours.

Occasionally some more music videos after dinner ( I'm not keen on this close to bed. But max 20 mins) At weekends he doesn't watch tv in the morning he plays, but maybe has 3 hours between Tv and screen, sometimes in the car or little chunks between family time. He only sleeps 10 hours so we have a couple extra to fill compared to some of his friends.

I don't believe people that have no screen time for children, maybe they count TV. I don't ever watch TV or tablets apart from with the kids, I'm too highbrow I spend my time reading mainly MN