screen time

[ioannakritsali]

how many hours a day your children are allowed to screen time and what devices? My 5yo is playing with my ipad all day.

No specific limit here, but they have to share one iPad between three of them so that creates a 'natural' limit. Also they all do lots of after school and weekend activities which keeps them busy during term time.

They're 8, 10 and 12 btw.

My five year old doesn't have an iPad but is obsessed with my phone. We don't have a limit as such but he can play on the phone or watch tv in the morning and the hour before bed but during the day we are busy and active and screens rarely come out (we'll have the odd quiet day in school holidays) this works well for us, screen time is less than 2 hours per day and he doesn't miss it because he's busy doing fun stuff.

My kids (11, 11 and 10) get 45 mins on a school day after homework is done, and 1hr 20 (roughly the length of a film) each weekend day.

Obviously they get more time if they need the computer for school work.

thank you!!! my son is using a lot the ipad before going to bed, and i am worried about the quality of his sleep with all this screen time just before bed. what do you think?

I collect all screens in around 7.15, with a view to lights out around 8/8.15. I encourage them to read/play quietly in their rooms to try and wind down a bit before bed.

Why are you allowing it? It’s very obviously not a good idea to let a child be on a tablet all day.

Speak to your health visitor and ask about parenting lessons.

parenting lessons?

Don't be ridiculous.

When you say he’s playing with the iPad all day... what are you doing? Is there some massive backstory? Seems fairly clear that it’s not ideal. How does he respond when you suggest doing something else?

My eldest is slightly younger (4) and has an iPad but only really uses it on long journeys. She watches a film maybe 3 or 4 times a month but other than that doesn’t really have screen time. We don’t have a rule; she could have the iPad at other times if she asked for it, we’re just normally busy doing other things.

It’s not ridiculous to suggest parenting lessons to an op who has several threads on the go at the same time regarding basic parenting matters.

iPads and phones aren’t electronic baby sitters. Kids shouldn’t be playing with them all day and certainly not before bed (the research into the effects of blue light and sleep disturbance is well know). It’s like crack cocoaine - the more they use it, the more they want. I woukd be limiting it if I were you.

Mine is 5 and usually watches tv for about 45 minutes to an hour while I cook dinner most days. It isn’t every day, but most. She also has some school work to do on the tablet, which is maybe 30 minutes a week. We also let her use the tablet or watch tv as long as she wants really on weekend mornings, so like 6:30am til whenever we go out for the day, so usually for a couple hours, but not on weekdays and we turn it off about 1.5 hours before bed.