Dear Savvy: What are the screen time recommendations for different ages?

How much screen time is healthy? Ask extended family, friends, or the people next door, and chances are, recommendations will be all over the place. But what do the experts say? And what about COVID-19 and social isolation—when all our best-laid plans are falling to pieces?! Let’s talk about it!

This episode is part of our #DearSavvy series. Sometimes you just want a quick answer to a burning question. These shorter episodes are designed to give you just that. Tune in to the podcast to hear the whole scoop, and check out the show notes for helpful tools and information. If you’d like to submit a question, click here to Contact Us. 

Dear Savvy: How much screen time is recommended for each age group?

Dear Listener,

It’s a crazy time. We’re recording this show during the COVID-19 pandemic, and after several months many of us are still quarantined. A large number of families are going back to school in a virtual environment. And even if we had awesome screen time boundaries in place before, many of them are completely turned upside-down at this point. 

These days, many of us worry less about the virus and more about our kids’ brains being fried! (And ours too.) Between working remotely, virtual school, telemedicine, video conferences, and everything else we’re doing remotely—plus fighting off the boredom with social media and digital entertainment—we may feel like screens are taking over our lives! So where’s the anchor? What do we do now? Let’s go back to basics.

Here is what Melody and Marilyn discussed on the podcast today:

Screen time recommendations from the experts

For those who are hunting for hard, fast guidelines, here are the (pre-COVID) American Academy of Pediatrics & World Health Organization recommendations for screen time:

• Infants under 1 yr/18 mo: no screens
• Ages 2 to 5: max 1 hour of high-quality programming
• Ages 6+: consistent limits (shouldn’t replace sleep, physical activity and other healthy behaviors)

(Note: The AAP has actually updated these recommendations since the beginning of the pandemic. Click here to learn about the new guidelines.)

Meeting in the middle when it comes to screen time

While it’s nice to have a cut-and-dry solution to the screen time dilemma, we know all families are different. And truthfully there is not a cookie-cutter answer for every household, or every moment in time. In reality, it’s best to evaluate the wants of the kids and the concerns of the parents, and decide as a family how to manage that. Make sure everyone has a say in the boundaries you set. Also, remember that it’s your presence in your kids’ “screen life” that is going to help them develop healthy screen habits. You are their anchor!

Screen time and setting priorities straight

We need to stop thinking about screen time as “good” or “bad” and start thinking about our family time in terms of priorities. Remember the jar analogy? What are the “big rocks” in your family? Sleep? Exercise? Work? Together time? We need to ask ourselves: Overall, is screen time taking up too much space and replacing some of these big rocks in our family jar? Or is screen time just part of the sand, filling up the cracks around our most important priorities? This is the key to establishing healthy screen time habits in our homes. Of course, we also need to pay attention to the quality of screen time that we’re counting. Because if anything has become obvious during the pandemic, it’s that all screen time is not created equal.  

Setting realistic expectations for screen time

As we mentioned earlier, things are a bit out of the ordinary right now. Everyone is home. We are on screens for work, school, doctor visits, and communication with the outside world, whether we like it or not. And that makes setting boundaries for screen time a bit more complicated. Gone are the days where we could put our lives into neat little boxes of on-screen and off-screen—at least for now. In the meantime, let’s remember to give ourselves a little grace. If you care about setting limits for your kids, you’re already ahead of the game. Because you care. So step back. Make your family plan. And if you fall off, then just breathe, re-evaluate, and start again. Tomorrow is a new day. 

Wise words: “What really matters are those connections we have with our family.” -Andrea Davis, Better Screen Time 

For more information…

Remember, today’s episode is just the short answer to this question. If you want more of a deep dive, check out Episode #1-13, Too Much Screen Time?

Episode challenge

This week, have a Family Power Meeting and make a list of all the unplugged activities that you love to do together. Does this activity sound familiar? That’s because it’s one of the exercises included in our Quick Guide to Safer Screen Habits! Fill out the form below to download your free copy.

Do you have a question for Melody & Marilyn? You can click here to Contact Us, email us at admin@parentsaware.info, or submit your question through any of our social media platforms. We’d love to hear from you!

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