What are your top tips for maintaining a healthy balance when it comes to technology use in your family? Share with BT

[EllieMumsnet]

This activity is now closed

With technology making up a big part of many peoples’ lives, including childrens’, there is a lot of conversation around how to ensure technology doesn’t completely take over family life. Technology can be a great source of education, entertainment, downtime and for some an essential part of work. BT and Internet Matters have teamed up to create their own list of tips for making sure your family has a healthy balance with technology, please click here to read them, but they would also really love to know your top tips.

Here’s what Bruce Cuthbert, Director of BT Devices has to say: “There are so many benefits for our children online, and an equal number of distractions. With kids back in school and autumn upon us, we’re spending more time indoors and the temptation is for kids to spend more time online. With Whole Home Wi-Fi, parents can pause the wi-fi and schedule wi-fi access device by device, to help children focus during study time and make bedtimes that bit easier, finding the right balance of online and offline time for the whole family. To find out more about Whole Home Wi-Fi, please click here.”

Do you have a time when you’ve agreed that you and your family will be off your devices, such as by dinner time? Perhaps you ensure that you have family days out and don’t take any technology with you? Maybe you go old-school and play board games on an evening with the family instead of watching tv? What if you were able to group your kids devices and then pause their wi-fi access at certain times; would this be useful to you?

Whatever your top tips are for maintaining a healthy balance when it comes to technology use in your family, post them on the thread below and everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

This is a hard one as we're quite bad for this, so probably need more rules. We have no screens in the bedroom or at the table and we make sure TV is only really early morning and evening, but it's still probably on more than it should be.

No screens at meal times.
Neither child has their own screen.
They're allowed a small amount of tele depending on behaviour / plans etc.
I encourage old fashioned non-screen fun where possible.
Drawing, jigsaws, board games, Lego.

We have a box in the kitchen where all devices live between 7am and 7pm. 12 yr old moans but we all sleep well!

We don't have devices at the table, and I try to model a healthy attitude to tech. So it's not a treat, and doesn't get taken away as a punishment, it is just a part of life that is fun but not the only thing we do.

Whatever fixes we put in place you can guarantee our children will know how to control it better than us so it's more about hoping they can managed themselves. I appreciate it's easier when they are younger though

It was much easier to control screen time when my children were little.

No tv in the morning when getting ready for school and only a couple of hours in the afternoon. We didn’t have tablets, smart phones or laptops.

Now I’m lucky we can get through christmas dinner without phones coming out!!

We have set up the screen time feature on my sons Xbox so he gets an hour a day. If I feel he can have more time I can give it but it seems to be working really well.

I think there is no need to give young kids electronics like phones or tablets. It's addicting, radiation is unhealthy, and it's bad for their eyes.
They end up staring at the screen for hours like zombies instead of playing with their friends, running around outside, or playing with their toys and having imagination like normal kids used to do in my time.

We were strict when she was younger but dd is 15 and the GCSE pressure is ramping up so screen time is necessary .
We use the rather crude BT parental controls but have to change them a lot since it has homework time Monday to Friday when was it should be Sunday to Thursday and it actually filters out very little
Luckily my dd is learning self discipline,she was on her mobile late last night so tonight went to bed at 9.30.as she was tired.
We have a small house so the home hub would not be useful and although I am with BT at the moment on a fast cable connection we have a lot of buffering in the evening when only using the TV for streaming

I only allow my daughter 30 mins of active use with her phone, and the children only use tablets when they are at their grandmothers as there are no many toys there. They are allowed to watch as much tv (within reason) as they want though as they can do other things at the same time.

Not at the table or in bed

Pretty much any router can be configured to limit internet access. Details of how to login to it will be on it. One useful option is making the kids login to a 'guest account' so your access remains while theirs shuts down.

We use an app that allows us to control the times and duration our devices are used with the children (3yo and 9yo). It stops arguments because the device gives a 5min warning then stops them using it. We can set different times for each of them depending on the age and usage requirements. DD also has a Kindle Fire which is set up to only be used between certain hours and only for a set number of minutes for videos & apps.

We also have no devices at the table and encourage film and board games maybe a couple of times a month to reconnect and enjoy time together. We purposely went on holiday this summer to a caravan where there was limited mobile signal and no wifi. It meant that phones and devices didn't get much use. We spent time out and about (as you would do on holiday) and on wet days we made Fimo models, painted stones etc. It was great.

No phones at the table when eating. Also no phones from 8pm.

This is such a thorny issue. On one hand you want to be a responsible parent, but on the other it's great that everyone in the family has their own space to use screens as they'd like. I started taking our two kids (ages 10 and 12) swimming one evening in the week, and as a result they don't spend any time on their screens on that day. I'm finding that if you encourage them to play boardgames the novelty of the simplicity often trumps the lure of a screen. For a couple of hours anyway! We are very relaxed about the amount of screen time they are allowed, but when the teenage years are upon us we will definitely have to have a more rigid set of rules in place.

My toddler asks to watch tv/computer and my phone all day so the only way I've been able to limit it is to take him out of the house as much as possible and distract him at the library, classes etc.

We make use of Apple Screen time and limit to 1.5 hrs a day. Also, no screens in bedroom at night and we have no access to screens between 7pm-7am. I also stick a social media screen time on my phone (I do admit I sometimes override this) and I get my phone to shut down at 9pm and won't let me access it until 7:30am. Generally it's working. The worst offender for screen time is DH - any ideas to make him realise how much he stares at his phone would be very much appreciated!!

We have a no screens at meal times rule but generally flex other times to fit with activities etc. But also a rule for the parents is to lead by example and so ensuring we aren’t constantly on our phones when asking the children not to have screen time, we try to do this ourselves but it’s very hard with everything so accessible

I try not to give kids too much screen time. I let them watch tv when we get home from school and nursery and on the weekends. sometimes i give them ipad time when they are trying to kill each other though!

Time limited for both kiddos, no phones at the table

Screens are banned at the meal table (at least when I'm around.... The kids are starting to police it now though!) TV watching tends to be as a family, and tablet time is limited to 30 mins/day.

No screens at the dinner table.
No phones or tablets in the bedroom at night.
Homework before screen time.
Very limited screen time during the week.
Lots of board games as a family to occupy them or they resort to Lego!

Clear boundaries on screen time, screen time a privilige not a right, no devices at the dinner table.

If I'm competely honest, my two elder children have far too much time online. They both have access to a smart phone plus a computer and chromebook. We do restrict the wifi by account and wifi box settings so each is meant to have an hour a day but the phone apps don't often need wifi so I spend a lot of time screaming at the kids and fighting to get the phones off them, threatening them and locking them in 'the box' when I'm at the end of my tether.

Our rules are no screens at meal times. Recently I've also had to impose a 'no tv/screen' rule on school mornings as both my DDs were getting too distracted and after a few arguments due to running late the ban was imposed. They haven't missed it though, and either write, draw or chat until it's time to get ready for school. During weekends and holidays, it is important to remember to switch off from technology and take walks, visit interesting places, play at the park etc, or play board games or read at home if the weather's not so good. It's all about finding a good balance, and that means for the adults just as much as for the children because they learn from OUR example too!