How have you successfully limited screen time for older kids?

[Livefreely]

I have a 10 year old DD and recently she’s wanting to spend more and more time on screens ( particularly Roblox).
We have decided to give a certain amount of screen per day but I’m tired of having to remind her to constantly get off the device and imagine if we don’t do more this is only going to get worse.
She’s also in a phase of not knowing what to do if she’s not on a screen and will do other things ( trampoline for example) for about 15 mins then get bored.
Before anyone asks, she had two clubs after school per week and they run til 415pm. Nothing else at the moment.
any advice around how you have successfully managed to limit screens?
thank you

Only by insisting on lots of activities out of the house really. Mine do a club or tutoring every weekday, and they run quite late (gets home at 8pm on some days) so there isn't much more time to do anything other than eat, get ready for bed, any homework/music etc. If you can get them into a hobby which needs attending more than once a week like swim squad that will help fill the time. There's always lots of comments about over scheduled kids and need for unstructured time but ime unstructured time just leads to screen time with this generation.

We time the screen time to end at a definitive point, so DD is allowed an hour max starting at 4.30 - which means the hour is up at dinner time. So screen has to go down for dinner and it doesn't get picked up again.

She doesn't always have the hour, like if she goes to the park after school and gets home at 5, she still has to be off the screen at 5.30.

We also have a rule that if there's any agro coming off the screen, either complaining, whingeing or delaying, she loses it the next day. No ifs or buts and no chance to earn it back.

We also just ignore her if she says shes bored. Literally a "that's unfortunate" and move on.

Whilst recognising this is a privileged position, mine did loads of sports clubs around that age. Every day. So eg swim club was - by the time we’d driven there, 1.5 hour training session, messed around in changing room, driven back - that was 3 hours of the evening gone, so I didn’t mind what she did after that.

Totally agree re the over scheduled kids comment - it may have been valid 20 years ago when the alternative was out on bikes etc, but in 2026 your options seem to be either 1. Completely overshedule them but then absolutely no screen time arguments as there’s only a small amount of time spare , 2. Don’t but then have constant arguments or moaning about screen time 3. As much screen time as they want
number 2 will depend on your child, dd2 would have just adhered to rules without complaint, but many don’t.
for me, for dd1. ADHD, option 1 was best. Dd2 would have been fine with 1 or 2.

Thank you for the messages, and taking the time to respond.
I do understand that if I put more activities in after school that would naturally decrease screen time. Unfortunately she has very little interest in any sport but there are some other things, cost dependent.
I feel it’s a shame this is what technology to an extent has done. I also don’t want to run around like a headless chicken most evenings just to keep the peace but I appreciate you have to make a choice!

We use quistodio app and they know they have a limit across all apps of 30 mins for the 10 year old and 60 mins for the 13 year old (on her phone) when that time is up it’s up!

At 10, mine weren’t allowed any small screens. So Roblox would have been impossible (I don’t even allow my teen on it because the parental control settings are not great). No phone, no tablet. Tv only. I don’t limit tv unless it’s meal times or time for bed. They can self-regulate with that, but no phones or tablets at that age.

Beyond that, staying busy. My dd is bit older now, but she was busy maybe 3 afternoons a week until dinner time or later. Some days we’d just go out, do the food shopping, meet a friend, go to the park, she could help cook dinner. I just kept her busy so she didn’t really have time for anything else.

Using automatic methods like parental controls which automatically switch off after a certain time (with a countdown displayed ideally).

Roblox is especially tricky. It's very addictive and the content is so hugely variable that it's hard to police so it needs a lot of close supervision. I cannot be doing with this because it's also incredibly boring/annoying to watch, unlike other games which I don't mind joining in with, so we have banned it for ours until they are about 15+. DS1 (nearly adult) can play it, the younger two (primary age) cannot.

IME if you want them to do things other than screens and not spend ALL the non-screen time obsessing over when it will be screen time, the screen allowance needs to be shorter. We had to about quarter DS1's before we found the right amount which didn't lead to this kind of obsessing.

But do consider whether it might be worth just pulling the plug on Roblox specifically.