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It’s well known that too much screen time is bad for kids. Exposing babies to screens too early can cause developmental delays in areas like problem-solving and communication. And as they get older, excess screen time can continue to harm kids’ cognitive, language, and social/emotional growth.
“A child will not learn to stack blocks by watching it on a screen,” pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Cross told Health Matters. “They will learn by touching the blocks, feeling the texture and weight of different materials, and using trial and error to get one to balance on another.”
Heavy screen usage is also tied to an increased risk of obesity, sleep disorders, and mental health issues like depression and anxiety. With all that at stake, limiting screen time is critical. And in theory, sounds reasonable. But when you’re a busy parent juggling work and taking care of your family, it can be all too easy to turn to screens to distract your kids when you need a moment to yourself or to finish sending a work email. Below I go over the recommended screen time limits by age, and then dive into my 6 favorite tips for limiting screen time and ensuring your kids don’t become addicted to their screens.
Skip Ahead: How To Limit Screen Time For Kids
Screen Time Limits By Age
Before we jump into how to limit screen time, you might be wondering, how much screen time is too much? Here are the official recommendations from The American Academy of Pediatrics, broken down by age:
- No screens under the age of 18 months
- Between 18 and 24 months screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver. (The World Health Organization says no more than 1 hour per day.)
- For children 2-5, non-educational screen time should be limited to 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours per weekend day.
- For ages 6 and older, encourage healthy habits and limit activities that include screens. (The AAP says there’s not enough information to give a specific hourly limit for this older group, and encourages focusing on quality over quantity.)
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How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Set Firm Boundaries & Stick With Them
When it comes to limiting screen time for your kids, the most important thing is to set firm boundaries on when your kids can watch TV — and stick with your word. If you don’t stick with whatever limit you’ve set that can lead to pushback. This comes back to one of my favorite pieces of parenting advice from our nannies: “No means no, and yes means yes.” This phrase has helped prevent tantrums and breakdowns so many times in our household because our kids know we honor our word.
Our kids are currently 3 and 5 and we limit screen time to ~2 hours on Sundays. We call this “Screen Time Sunday,” and we all watch a movie together as a family, alternating who picks the show or movie that we watch. Our oldest is also allowed one extra screen time activity during the week. He can choose between a kid-friendly video game like Paw Patrol or a show like Spidey & Friends, Young Jedi, or Bluey. Of course, there are occasional exceptions to these rules, but because we are generally firm with these screen time limits, we don’t get pushback or begging from our kids to watch TV outside our agreed-upon times.
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How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Only Use Big Screens In Common Areas
Don’t put TVs in your kids’ bedrooms, and limit their screen time to a large screen, like a computer or TV that cannot be easily moved. Ideally, you want your kids to associate screens with a physical TV mounted on the wall that cannot be accessible at any time, anywhere. Our kids are only allowed to use mobile devices such as iPads or phones for screentime during travel or other special circumstances (e.g. a long flight to Hawaii that requires 6 hours of entertainment in a seat). This also helps eliminate all those annoying “Can I use your phone?” questions during an outing.
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How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Don’t Allow Phones At Dinner
Implement a “no phones at dinner” policy — and that includes you and your partner as well! This is one of my favorite tips for ensuring you get quality time with your kids. When we eat at home, we love using Table Topics for Kids to help spark conversation. And when we’re dining out, we always bring non-screen entertainment to restaurants (or really anywhere we might need to wait). Bizzy Bags are ideal for restaurants. Each bag contains ~7 STEM toys and we reuse the bags at least 3-4 times each.
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How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Reduce Your Screen Use Too
If you constantly have the TV on in the background or are glued to your phone, your kids will see that behavior as normal and want to do the same. It’s especially important to avoid using screens during those early years with your baby. Beyond screen addiction, our newborn care specialist told us that screens provide too much stimulation for babies’ brains when they are learning to process the world and the new skill of falling asleep.
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How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Have Go-To Screen-Free Activities
We have a set of go-to screen-free activities that both our kids and us love to do. It’s easier to limit screen time when there are other activities on hand that our kids genuinely look forward to doing. Check out my article, The 11 Best Indoor Activities For Families, for my favorite screen-free activities that we do as a family. Of course, there are times when you need your child to play independently too. We get it! Our kids can spend a solid hour playing with these scratchpads (ages 3 yo+) while listening to their TonieBox. What I love about a Toniebox is that they can easily experience a variety of songs and stories, without interacting with a device or asking mom and dad for help.
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My #1 Tip On How To Limit Screen Time For Kids: Invest In Support
I believe that a parent’s exhaustion is the true origin story of children's excessive screen time. When you’re busy and stretched thin, it’s so easy to turn to screens when you need a break, which is what ultimately leads to your kids wanting more. So instead of using the TV as a babysitter, I think the absolute best thing you can do to limit screen time is to hire support.
For us, we hired a nanny and don’t allow her to use screens with the kids. This helps limit screen time in our house in a few ways. Obviously, when our nanny is with the kids we know they aren’t using screens. A former Montessori preschool teacher, she has introduced our family to so many fun, screen-free activities that we wouldn't have thought of ourselves. But perhaps most importantly, by having that additional support my partner and I are able to show up fully present and engaged once she leaves, ready to build forts, read books, or stack blocks with our kids.
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If a nanny isn’t an option for you, think about the times that you find yourself turning to screens to keep your kids distracted. Is it when you need to do laundry or clean the house? If so, maybe investing in a housekeeper to tackle those tasks is what you need. Or perhaps, you put on Bluey when you need to meal prep or cook dinner. In that case, have you thought about hiring a meal prep chef or using a prepared meal delivery service for extra support? Or maybe what you really need is a babysitter to come twice a week after school from 3:30 pm - 7:30 pm for some extra support while you catch up on tasks or get some needed “me time”.
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