Screen Time for Children: The Good and The Bad

Credit: Tarja

School break is coming. It’s the time when you start the google search on how to limit children’s screen time when they are at home all day. For a lot of parents, the last thing you want to see is your child browsing social media watching videos after videos or binging repetitive TV shows.

Like you, many parents have justifiable concerns about a child’s health and cognitive development when it comes to screen time. Some have resolved to preventing screen time 100%, and with a lot of efforts it is possible. However, it may not necessarily be the best strategy due to:

1. Some screen time, especially one that involves interacting with computer, allows children to develop essential technology skills for the 21st century.

2. Active screen time can effectively promote children’s cognitive, social, and physical skills.

3. It’s better to help children develop healthy habits when it comes to using screen time instead of avoiding it altogether. Since children will likely grow up with technology being an essential part of their lives, learning good practices involving screen time is vital.

Keep reading to find out different types of screen time, and how you can use it to your child’s advantage.

What are the types of screen time?

There are two main distinct type of screen time: passive and active.

• Passive Screen Time: This is “the devil” that many parents are worried about. Passive screen time requires little thinking or interaction from children and is often repetitive. For example, children could binge videos on auto play mode based on suggestions from algorithm rather than intentional planning. This hurts their eyesight, contributes to a sedentary lifestyle, and deters creative thinking. Passive screen time should be minimized.

• Active Screen Time: On the contrary, active screen time requires thinking, creativity, intentional interactions, or gross movement from children. If done right, active screen time is beneficial for for the physical, social, and cognitive skills of your child. Some examples of active screen time are: making a video, creating an artwork, coding a game, connect with friends or family members who live far away, etc.

Now you may ask How do I create Active Screen Time for my child?

The good news is that creating more active screen time is not very difficult. It takes a bit of planning and preparation from parents. But once you cultivate these healthy practices into your and your child’s schedules, you will reduce a lot of problems related to passive screen time in the long run.

These are five ways you can create active screen time for your child:

1. Discuss content of the media

Sometimes, watching TV series is part of your child’s culture learning. To maximize its benefits, you can discuss with your child about the content of the series or any videos they have watched that day. Ask them questions like What is the video about? What is the most interesting thing you have learned? Any lesson you can apply into your daily life? These questions help your child really think about and process the content, thus deepen their understanding about that topic.

You can let your child watch a short video or movie about their favorite topic, and let them teach you what they know. For example, my sister’s 6-year-old watched the swimming Olympics, and now she can tell us different types of swimming and the names of the best swimmers in the world. Whether your child’s interest lies in sports, nature, arts, or science, you can pick kid-friendly content and come up with questions for your child to think about before and while watching it.

2. Create, don’t just consume

Instead of only watching content, you can let your child create videos or even short movies. The process of cooking up the ideas, filming, and editing can ignite their creativity. To do this, you can teach your child to use basic tools, and provide some guidance for them to start the project. It’s important to make them feel comfortable and not expect them to follow too many rules. Children are born artists, so let their imagination fly.

For older child, you can also let them try coding. This important skill helps your child practice logical thinking and problem-solving capability. If you don’t know how to teach your child to code, you can take a look at upiopi’s spring camp where we offer hands-on coding activities that focuses on your child’s critical problem-solving skill.

3. Increase social interaction

Connecting with others is important, especially during breaks when your child does not socialize a lot with their school friends. You can teach them to make video calls to catch up with their friends or family members who live far away. Make sure to guide them basic security practices to help create a safe online environment.

Another way is to let your child take hands-on, live activities with trusted coaches. If you want your child to grow their future skills while enjoying their time, you can check out our upcoming spring camp in UAE. All of our Finnish coaches have years of experience in early childhood education, and they follow Finland’s educational principle: to let children play to learn. Therefore, no passive screen time or dull moment is allowed! Only hands-on, interactive, fun lessons are available.

4. Integrate physical activities

As the name suggests, active screen time does require us to be active. You can select different movement videos tailored for your child and let them follow along. For younger children, this requires a bit of parental support at the beginning. If you don’t have a lot of time to personally instruct them, you can opt for live lessons by professional coaches. In our upcoming spring camp, there is a session dedicated to mindfulness and movement to help children stay calm and relax. This helps build their emotional regulation skills and contributes to a balanced, happy life in the long run.

One small note: Some computer games do require children to dance or move along. But many video games only require holding the console and pressing buttons. The latter one is not considered physically active screen time.

5. Minimize passive screen time

One important strategy to create more active screen time is to set up an environment that minimized passive screen time. For example, you can turn off auto play mode on Youtube, set out specific screen-free time or screen-free room. This way little passive screen time can creep into your child’s schedule. This strategy does take some trial and error to find specific sets of rules that fit your family’s lifestyle and circumstances. Therefore, you can start off with easy tasks like setting boundaries for technological devices and continue to adopt new rules and adjust from there.

You can also set up a no-screen day and set up family bonding time. A camping trip in nature, or a family picnic in the park occasionally can create amazing memories and let your child (and yourself) cherish the outdoor world.

We hope that these five strategies can help you build more Active Screen Time into your child’s daily schedule and give your self a bit more reassurance during this school break. Remember, active screen time can boost children’s physical, social, and cognitive skills. Apply these tips and let us know what works best for your case!