How much screen time do you allow your kids.

[teawomen]

My DD is 8. An only child. Her iPad has been a god send when communicating with other friends and family. She loves that she can play games whilst talking to friends and has group chats (which are all monitored) everything is linked to my Phone so I know what’s going on. She cant download anything with lout permission.

And I know by worrying this makes me a good parent but I’m scared she’s becoming dependent. I mean what else is there to do. I give her 2 hours a day (when schools are open and lockdown isn’t a thing) and at the minute she has 4 sometimes 5 hours per day (doesn’t tend to use it all). Is it to much? I mean I interact with her and play real games (monopoly, cludeo ect) aswell.

Just some days I feel like a shit parent. Lock down has robbed us of our routines and I’m scared she will Actually become depend on bloody devices.

There is no way I'm imposing a limit on my 13 year old. Lockdown is difficult enough for kids as it is. He goes out on his bike once a day and plays his guitar, but there is very little else for him to do. He's doing his school work. That's all that should matter just now.

No limit at all at the moment. My only rule is set a timer and have a 10 minute break every hour. Then they come off for lunch and dinner. I'm lucky that both mine will generally self regulate and do some reading/playing throughout the day as well. Quite frankly there's not much else for them to do at the moment and 90% of the time they're playing with friends so I'm certainly not going to take away their only way of socialising right now.

As a teen I spent hours upon hours playing video games or watching TV. I got good grades and I'm not an axe murderer now so I honestly wouldn't worry too much. Whatever gets us all through the day relatively unscathed is a win to me.

If I'm honest my 13 yo is on a screen most of the time at the moment. I make sure I drag him out for a walk once a day, and he switches it off and joins us for lunch, dinner and about an hour before bed. Other than that, he is on a screen during the morning doing school work, then he is on a screen playing with friends in the afternoon and evening. It is far from ideal, but he is interacting with friends and occupied, and at the moment that seems like the best I can hope for. Once lockdown lifts I will impose limits again, but for now there doesn't seem to be a lot else he can realistically do.

Too much!

My DD is still a baby but I don't plan on restricting screen time too much when she's old enough. Me and my partner have always loved videogames and have spent a lot of time playing them all our whole lives. I think they can be a great way for kids to learn useful skills such as problem solving, creativity and teamwork!

Of course I'll still encourage her to spend time outdoors and doing other things, but I don't see screen time as a bad thing at all and can lead to what they want to do later in life 😊 For me and my partner, playing games so much led to an interest in how they are made and we now both have careers making games.

I dont think now is the time to be too restrictive about screens, unless maybe you have acres of land and lots of other things to do

None... but he’s only 8 months! I doubt a screen would hold his attention for longer than a couple of minutes anyway.

I think the most important thing at the moment is for us all to get through this. Both parents and kids.

So long as they're clean, fed, clothed, get enough sleep, do a bit of school work and get out for a little walk each day (or at least most days), what they do in between is just a matter of coping right now.

There's little point in causing an atmosphere with arguments about screen time, when you could cope so much better by just letting them get on with it. I wouldn't normally take that stance, but there's so little else to do at the moment, winter's miserable, and we really have no idea how long this is going to go on.

You're doing a great job, all of you. Whether your child is getting 1 hour or 10 hours. They're happy, they're safe, they're healthy.

During the week, my 9-year-old gets about 30-45 minutes for lessons most days (occasional documentary would make it higher), and now with his older siblings home (and far more of the afternoon taken with 'live lessons'), they all pick either an hour of gaming or they all pick a show to watch (most via Youtube so it ends up being slightly more than an hour), plus any we use as a family in the evening.

On weekends and holidays, they get both to pick a show in the morning and gaming in the afternoon. If I'm just shattered or someone's ill, they might get 'music mornings' where those up for it take turns picking music.

My 11 & 13 year old also get an hour of phone time a day plus whatever their lessons need.

The 16 year old has free use of his devices, though he still has google family link on it to monitor his time so we can discuss it & sometimes he agrees he needs some outside cut-offs (much like both of us do with pomodoro timer that cuts off certain websites and a tracker on our laptops so we can talk about usage together. He and I are very alike in this - which is both great cause I understand, but also it's hard to tell him not to do things when I've been doing similar...).

We pretty much have the TV on nearly all day. It plays nursery rhymes dc plays, watches it sometimes when his favourite songs come up, runs around does other things. So it's a bit like music in the background playing all day long. We turn the tv off when we are having a meals though. We go outside everyday, he naps, has his meals, nappy change, snacks, bath time and follows me around so it's not exactly as if his glued to the TV. I know it's bad and doesn't help with language development but I'm doing everything all on my own right now (DH keyworker). Dc does get attention from me a lot but when there's cooking, cleaning and doing errands or even to have a peaceful coffee in the morning I have to otherwise I will lose the will to live which would be worse I guess?

First lockdown in the end they were in front of a screen for 12 hours or so now we're down to about 7ish hours a day. I don't count schoolwork obviously. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a way for my older DC to keep in touch with their friends and also it helps to keep parents sane.....