How much screen-time do you allow your children?

[redhappy]

Ds (4) wants to watch/play games all the time. I have the rule that no screens allowed til 3pm. We go out everyday, I don't drive so he gets plenty of fresh air and exercise. But he wants to watch/play on it all the time.

I stick to the rule, but it's so draining. He hits and kicks, me, his little sister, toys.

I am changing his playschool after halfterm, as they don't know what to do with him and let him play on the computer all day.

He has been referred for autism, so far the paediatrician as said he has 'communication and behaviour difficulties'. He just doesn't want to do anything else. Wondering how others deal with this?

We do have lots of books, toys etc by the way, and I try to play with him too

Loads. heaps and heaps. Once I started allowing ds1 to play on the computer, he really slowed down with destroying my house.

Ds1 has ASD. Try to imagine trying to amuse yourself with just your imagination when you do not, in fact, have an imagination to speak of! Is it any wonder they get bored and frustrated?

if we are in the house, there is a screen on. My children are exercised, and not at all fat, and ds2 is quite an imaginative little boy actually - but needs must.

I carefully filter what they watch and play.

Actually I got it wrong, it was 'social and communication difficulties'.

He doesn't know how to relate to his peers, has no friends, just feels like the opposite of what I should be helping him to do.

I just want him to be as calm and happy as poss when he starts new playschool.

I don't know that tv/games are directly the problem, but the lack of interaction when he spends too much time on them takes him back several steps it feels like.

Maybe I'm making a rod for my own back then

We don't actually have a tv, so he can only watch the dvds we have, and cbeebies iplayer, so it means he's watching the same thing over and over again (which is of course the way he likes it!)

redhappy, when ds1 was four he would walk away from a lovely involved mummy trying to play playdoh or read stories to go into the bathroom and pour toothpaste into the bath.

If it is making him very unhappy to have screentime banned until 3pm, I would question yourself on why you are bothering to ban it. If your son is autistic, taking away screen time will not make it go away. It might make his behavior worsen.

Thanks. tbh it's everyone else telling me he's not autistic. I think he most likely is!

Today ironically (or not) he has ignored playdoh (decided to hit his sister instead) turned down stories, and disappeared upstairs to run, then pull out the plug, endless sinks of water in the bathroom.

He was doing so well in the summer, when we were outdoors and busy all the time. I even started to question if there was anything wrong.

Oops, pressed post too soon!

When he is engaged and enjoying an activity nobody can tell there's anything different about him.

I heard a really good quote the other day, and the gist was 'trying too hard IS resisting' and that sums up what I'm probably doing. I really want him to settle at the new place (is nursery at a school, he has been referred to the sn nursery which runs there in the afternoons, want him to continue there into reception next year).

I never used to limit it. But now DS (NT?) is not allowed to play before school or after 7pm

This is so that he can wind down before bed time. And so that he will go to bed early enough to read....

(And so that he doesn't get wound up before school)

I would love to limit him more - but know that I would not be able to enforce it.

No limits here. He has ADHD and anything he will concentrate on for a bit is fine by me.

His Nintendo DS has really helped him in this.

Both dd's (ASD age 4 and 6) spend a lot of time on the PC, we have just gone 3 weeks without the internet (due to moving house) and it was hell, dd1 would play the Wii instead but dd2 can't. I would say they spend 2-3 hours a day (sometimes more) on the pc or Wii, they hardly watch TV (dd2 likes 'mr bean' and dd1 likes game shows). We get meltdowns when the pc gets turned off.

I'm interested to know from those who don't place any limits, how much time do you think your dc's actually spend on there?

If I didn't limit it he would spend all day (as happens when I am out and dp is with them all d ay!).

Bedtime is at 7pm, so it normally goes off about 6.30pm. That's 3.5 hours, which I thought was quite a lot already?

red- if i leave dh in charge they end up on the pc all day , when i'm at home they have to share it with me .

I have a friend who does kinesiology (I think!) and he said the effect of the screen, and the way it works on the eyeballs, is a form of self-hypnosis. So I understand that ds can use it to calm and reassure himself.

His speech is quite delayed. The only emotion he can tell me is sad, so he can't tell me himself what he gets from it

If I do change my stance on this will definitely need to get a tv licence I can't handle watching the same dvds anymore than we do already!

Ds1 watches constantly or at least it is on in the background all the time. dd2, higher functioning watches after school for maybe an hour and a half and then maybe an hour or so in the morning. She has other stuff she is interested in. Ds1 is so severely autistic that I really don't think it can do any harm tbh. It's the only thing he enjoys. I think that he is making efforts all day at school so don't worry about it at home. We have too many other things to stress over.

We dont limit DD (ASD) and she gets very obsessive over tv programmes and games. She used to love cbeebies but is now scared of it...same with pingu and pepper pig...extreme love/hate relationship!

DD has a leapster 2 and a DS, I like the leapster because I can see what shes been up to when I plug in online...reading ability aged 7/8...shes 5. :)

She learns a lot visually so the only harm its doing is the annoying Mickey Mouse voice she has and the American accent shes developed!

Red...DD wants the same tv channel/dvds on for months at a time so although you get a little more varied you end up watching endless repeats!

redhappy

Sounds like a good thing that your ds is moving nurseries if they let him go on pc all the time. Perhaps at new place you can suggest they either never let him go on or only go on a specific times.

If you know he is doing more things at nursery then perhaps you will feel more relaxed about screen time at home?

With my kids it depends - ds age 4 has asd and i have an nt 2 yo as well. somedays we watch none, other days it can be on for hours. most of the time we watch around an hour per day.

ds has not figured out about games or even how to put on a dvd because he has motor delays and this is one of the things I'm not proactively showing him how to do yet

We have an hour a day limit as a general thing.. However if ds is having a bad moment he is allowed to sink into the world of the psp, laptop or movies.

When he is at his dads he has open house on screen time.

I tend to find that it's harder to get him outside and actually join in the world ( and do the things that we all need to do) if he has much longer than an hour..

Yes I have high hopes for the new nursery.

The headteacher showed us round last week, and as we left her parting words, 'once he's here we'll get started on the paper work for a statement for when he starts in September'. This is a good sign I think?! Have since found out the HT is the senco for the school.

The sn nursery provision for the area runs from the school nursery in the afternoons, which ds had been referred too. The same woman runs this, and the normal morning nursery, and they told me there are currently 3 other autistic children there, so they should be much better equipped to help him.

Ds is very good at gadgets and anything technical, so I don't want to deprive him something he enjoys and is good at. But I find the same as arsenic, it just seems he retreats further. I worry about him missing out further on his development

DS[16] plays for hours he's only just started showing an interest in one other thing in the last month. He has one friend who comes when he's home from school at weekends but he still plays on PC whilst he here and hardly speaks to him.