How To Manage ‘Screen Time’ with Your Kids (Updated 2023)

How we successfully managed screen times until (almost) adulthood

Prologue: This article was originally written when my kids were ten and eleven, and now — as my eldest approaches his seventeenth birthday — I thought it would be sensible to update the second half of this article with what additional learnings and difficulties we encountered. And, even at this age, what rules we still have in place, both for them and us as adults.

When I was a kid I was utterly addicted to books.

I literally couldn’t stop reading, finding any excuse to finish a favourite novel, even resorting to the classic torch-under-the-bed-covers move that all kids think their parents don’t know about. (We do, by the way.)

I loved sci-fi from all the greats such as Clarke, Bradbury and Asimov, but also adventure stories from Captain W. E. Johns and Enid Blyton. I must have read hundreds and hundreds of books by the time I was twelve.

But it was the seventies. There were only three channels on TV, there were no computers or phones and Wi-Fi was just a made up word that wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of my sci-fi novels. Basically, if your friends weren’t around to head up to the local woods on bikes, there wasn’t much else to do.

And somehow no-one minded this sort of addiction. Hell, I was even encouraged, sometimes spending entire days in my room surrounded by paperbacks and heavily labelled books from the library.

But by the early 80’s the world’s first hand held gaming devices started to appear. They were tiny black and white liquid crystal displays on a device that had the same sort of footprint as a cigarette packet, but half the thickness. You could move characters around a pre-printed image using one or two buttons in an incredibly limited, repetitive and primitive way, but for our generation, it was jaw dropping technology.

Instantly, our previous addictions — whatever they were — were lost and replaced with endless hours of making the same moves over and over again in an effort to beat some mysterious high score.

I mention this because I think I understand the addiction that today’s kids now have. I have absolutely no doubt that I would have the same level of addiction if I was among them now.

And that realization — nay confession — is the first step to getting this right.

When the first Apple smart phones, iPads and iPods came out, it was immediately clear our young children were drawn to them and could operate them effortlessly, even as young as two or three as they were at the time.

This was a novelty at first, but we soon noticed that ‘screen time’ quickly became the primary preference over other games. We didn’t mind per se, but what we did notice was that when playing on screens our two kids, who had previously always played together and were close as a result, were now spending their play time apart. It didn’t seem a good balance.

So, right from early on, we had strict rules on screens. These were pretty basic when they were very little as we made sure that screen time was next to minimal, probably no more than a few minutes a day, usually as a reward for being good, playing nicely, doing a basic chore etc, or even a special bonus for a personal achievement such as having a whole day without pull-ups (the nappy, not the exercise) or getting a gold star at school etc.

On the flip side, of course, the reward was not forthcoming if the agreed action wasn’t completed in the first place and both myself and my partner always provided a completely unified front on this point.

And still do to this day.

But in terms of screens, the rest of the rules were pretty obvious at this stage. No screens at tables or while eating, especially in restaurants, no screens in the car, no screens early in the morning or late at night, no screens in any social situation and so on. Screen time was a pastime, one of may, to be enjoyed by the kids at the right time.

And, of course, we made sure we followed the same rules at all times as well, further adding to the ‘normality’ they experienced. After all, our children will always do what we do, not what we say, so this is critical.

It’s also not always easy though, is it? Us adults are just as prone to temptation as the kids (How many times have you found yourself saying “I’ll just quickly text so-and-so back” or “I’m just checking something” etc etc), but in general only the most extreme crises have ever actually interrupted our meal or ‘non screen’ time.

These rules worked really well for years and, actually, needed almost no enforcement as it was ‘normal’ for them to use screens in this way. They’d simply never known any different and they always saw us parents observing the same rules.

It required no more than an occasional reminder, softly given, if one of them forgot one of the rules occasionally. This meant they’d grown up still going out on bikes, building camps, reading, painting, playing board or fantasy games together and all the usual things that kids do.

However, the biggest rule change came when they got their first phone which was actually theirs and had a SIM card in it at the end of year six, or at approximately 11 years old. We knew we were going to handing over a portion of control commensurate with their increasing awareness and we also felt that we should be doing this. They were growing up, they needed to make some of their own choices.

And mistakes.

Both of our kids had to sign a ‘contract’ that we wrote for them when they got their first ‘proper’ phone.

This now was about more than just screen time, this was also about all the things us parents worry about to extreme levels that we hear about in the news. For the first time our children had a direct line to the outside world independent of you or where they were.

It had to be monitored, but without being intrusive and whilst respecting their privacy, and this contract was more about that than actual time spent on it. I’ll blog about that bit separately later on — it’s worked for us so far, perhaps it, or some variant thereof, will for you too.

All the rules they were used to anyway were now formalized, laid down clearly and amended to reflect their age. The deal was that they would always be able to enjoy guilt free, uninterrupted screen time on their own terms as long as those rules were adhered to. Here’s what we ended up with:

• No screens at tables at any time during any mealtimes anywhere, ever.
• No screens before 9am or after 7pm
• No screens in the car on the way to or on the way back from school (although their school is entirely iPad based, this is strictly controlled and monitored. Phones are not allowed under any circumstances on the premises.) We’ve found this time is some of the best chatting and bonding time there is.
• No screens in any social situation where we’re with other people (parties, social gatherings etc) although using the devices as a camera is, of course, fine.
• On long car journeys, some screen time is OK, but this is discussed between all of us first.
• No phones, iPads or any other device to be left in their rooms overnight. Friends on sleepovers must also surrender their phones. (This has been the toughest rule to enforce as they’re not our kids, but it has, nevertheless, been enforced.)
• A maximum of 90 mins on screens on a school day provided all homework is completed and all chores are done, and provided it doesn’t go past 7pm.
• A maximum of 3 hours screen time on a ‘non school’ day provided all chores done and subject to other rules above.
• Any going over screen time results in loss of screen time completely for the entire following day.
• Screen time for any purely educational purpose is exempt from time limits, although still subject to the above.

So far we haven’t had to set up any monitoring software, although we do a leisurely and informal monitoring system. The kids will come in to my office where their devices are stored in a large central charging station, and announce they’re ‘going on their screens.’ We’ll make a rough mental note of the time, make sure they’re aware of it too and off they go.

At first, they tended to use their time in one go. More recently, we’ve found that they now tend to do it in sections, interspersed with other activities, which has made actual time tracking a little harder, but not impossible. So far, almost eighteen months in, they have been very honest about their times.

My son has lost his screens for the odd day here and there for going way over, mainly because he loses track of time when engrossed in anything to do with Minecraft. His sister, by contrast, sets her alarm and sometimes rather sweetly asks me if she can watch the end of her YouTube video if she’s going to go over.

“A few minutes? Of course you can. And thanks for asking.”

They’ve also lost screen time for the usual faux pas that we all make as children, and so far this has been easy to enforce as the kids haven’t tried to circumvent it, probably because they know that trying to do so won’t end well for future screen time. They’ve even worked to earn back screen minutes by carrying out extra chores or going above and beyond on homework, often successfully.

Of course, we can only talk about what we have found so far. My son is about to celebrate his thirteenth birthday, my daughter her twelfth. Every day is new territory and although we feel we have been successful in creating a happy medium for everyone so far, it’s clear that a lot of their peer group spend waaaaaay more time on screen than they do and this fact has not been lost on them. It will only be a matter of time before the ‘it’s not fair, so-and-so can go on their phone whenever they want’ discussions start.

Thus will begin the next parenting challenge and you can bet I will be trawling Medium to find someone who has blogged about the next couple of years in this regards and learn about what they found …

Tell you what, I’ll update this in 2021 and let you know how it went.

Assuming I can get on any of the devices to do so of course.

The 2023 Update

Even though I promised a return to this article in 2021, I didn’t quite make it. However, as my children leave childhood behind for good and begin their own lives, perhaps the timing, now October 2023, is actually better.

So what can we add? What additional issues or opportunities did we find in the teen years that were different to the earlier years?

Well, surprisingly, not much.

I think because we’d had the rules in place for so long, the simple fact of the matter is that it had become entirely second nature. Even up until 15 and 16, both kids automatically came off their phones, iPads and computers at 7pm, put them on charge in the office (even us adults don’t keep devices in the bedroom) and joined us for family time.

In fact, because we usually eat together at the table between 6.30 and 7pm, this often spells the end of screen time naturally.

That is, until recently.

Now, most of their friends are on until 11pm pm or later so, while their phones were once silent in their charging cradles from 7pm, they now buzz constantly with updates, notifications and messages.

As a parent, therefore, it was no good pretending that 7pm was now a practical time for cut off. At the same time, we also felt that just allowing staring at screens all evening (which, of course, is exactly what I would have done had they been around when I was a kid) was also not a wise idea.

A compromise had to be found.

So, for the last three months we have moved to a system whereby after 7pm, phones can only be used for messaging, calls or “quick checks” right up to bedtime which, of course, has also gotten later as they have gotten older.

The only thing we still don't allow is watching videos or playing games (that is, things that demand you to be glued to the device) after 7pm which, because of our family dynamic, is not really a problem in practice anyway.

You see, since the kids were tiny, we have always made the evening about family times — whether that’s reading together, drawing, playing games or just watching TV. Screens, therefore, were never really a part of it and even us adults left them somewhere out of view while we were doing that.

Well, mostly. I mean, nobody's perfect, right?

And to this day, we still have family time in the evenings, even though life can be very chaotic at times. I also have to be honest and say the days of reading, drawing and playing games are now few and far between and family viewing has switched from “Doctor Who” and various Disney Channel productions to “The Walking Dead” and “The last of Us”

But at least we’re still watching it together on the one big screen, huddled on the sofa, sans phones.

And, while I miss the days of fairies, train sets and imagination games, it really ain’t so bad.

In the meantime if you have any tips or advice on what has worked for you, I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

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