Managing Screen Time

One of the biggest questions facing every parent of school-age children is: What is the appropriate amount of time for my child to be in front of screens during the course of any given day? It’s such a complicated question, with probably the only real healthy answer being as little as possible. For most of our lives, screens are a necessity of communication, school, information retrieval, and everything from boredom relief to keeping Snapchat streaks alive. And if we admit it, most of us as parents have become so dependent on our own devices that we might have lost the clarity of perspective that might otherwise guide us to reasonably limit our own kids’ screen time. But the cumulative impact of screens on kids’ development really can’t be argued. The technology and analytics have outpaced any semblance of fair play when it comes to “making good choices.” Kids have now become the sacrificial lambs to the capitalist profiteers of the informational technology industry, and there is very little that we can do about it. Talk to your kids. Limit screen time. Hold off on getting those phones for as long as you can. Take them for a walk in the woods. They will thank you eventually.