Tablets and Smart Phones and Kids, Oh My!

At no point in his­to­ry have humans had such easy and con­stant access to news, infor­ma­tion, enter­tain­ment, and singing goat videos as we do now? Gam­ing sys­tems, smart­phones, tablets, lap­tops, and smart TV’s – these devices allow us to see and do things pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions could nev­er have imag­ined. It blows my mind that I can ask Siri what a word means and get an answer with­out even pick­ing up my phone. Any­one else adore that you can set an alarm, apply for a loan, shop for under­wear, watch a movie, talk with any­one you’ve ever met (or any­one you’ve nev­er met), play games, and take high-qual­i­ty pho­tos all on the same device?

Tech­nol­o­gy Is Amaz­ing Isn’t It!?

Except that all of these tech­no­log­i­cal advances are one of the biggest risks fac­ing kids today. Exces­sive screen time is asso­ci­at­ed with the fol­low­ing emo­tion­al and behav­ioral problems:

• Sleep prob­lems
• Depres­sion symp­toms, such as irri­tabil­i­ty, slug­gish­ness, and social withdrawal
• Decreased abil­i­ty to tol­er­ate boredom
• More access to neg­a­tive social sit­u­a­tions like bullying
• Con­stant com­par­i­son to oth­ers (via social media)
• Poor self-esteem
• Poor social skills development
• High­er risk of victimization
• Decreased inter­est in pre­vi­ous­ly enjoyed activities
• Expo­sure to the poten­tial­ly trau­ma­tiz­ing mate­r­i­al and inac­cu­rate information
• Melt­downs and pow­er struggles
• Increased aggres­sion

Though there would be ben­e­fits to a screen-free lifestyle, you don’t have to elim­i­nate elec­tron­ic use in your home to reduce the neg­a­tive impact of elec­tron­ic devices on your kids’ behav­ior and mood:

• If your child is lit­tle and does not yet have access to an iPad or tablet, keep it that way. For as long as pos­si­ble. Expo­sure to this kind of tech­nol­o­gy can lit­er­al­ly change their brains and neg­a­tive­ly influ­ence readi­ness to learn.
• What about edu­ca­tion­al games, you ask? Well, as I said, put that off for now, as there will be plen­ty of time for those lat­er. Spend time read­ing sto­ries with your child instead.
• If lit­tle ones are already using elec­tron­ic devices, keep it lim­it­ed to small amounts of time, only edu­ca­tion­al games, and only if you are there inter­act­ing with your child. When elec­tron­ic devices are used as babysit­ters, impor­tant devel­op­men­tal mile­stones and bond­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties are missed.
• Regard­less of the age of your child, mod­el appro­pri­ate screen time behav­iors. Prac­tice what you preach and put down that device! As soon as you fin­ish read­ing this post, that is.
• Once you intro­duce elec­tron­ics, use them to your ben­e­fit. Save them for when it is ben­e­fi­cial for your kids to be qui­et and seden­tary, such as allow­ing tablet time dur­ing long car rides, in wait­ing rooms, and at restau­rants. Mak­ing it a spe­cial occa­sion activ­i­ty helps kids to appre­ci­ate the priv­i­lege more.
• Com­put­ers, devices, tele­vi­sions, and video games should be kept in a com­mu­ni­ty area of the house such as the liv­ing room or a fam­i­ly den. Keep­ing these things in children’s bed­rooms dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­es the risk of the prob­lems list­ed above.
• Chil­dren should be giv­en a clear set of rules and expec­ta­tions with any new elec­tron­ic device.
• Set and enforce time lim­its consistently.
• Chil­dren and teens should not have free access to their devices dur­ing the night. This rule is not pop­u­lar and has been known to cause some fire­works when imple­ment­ed. But kids who sur­ren­der their devices at bed­time get more qual­i­ty sleep which is impor­tant for devel­op­ment and mood reg­u­la­tion. You’re going to need a bet­ter argu­ment than that when you break it to your kid that they have to turn over their phone at 8pm but this is one bat­tle worth picking.
• Home­work and oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties should be com­plet­ed first. Many par­ents report their kids are more able to focus on home­work when elec­tron­ic use is con­fined to the weekends.
• Pro­vide chil­dren with infor­ma­tion about the risks of too much screen time as soon as they start to use it.
• Teach and remind kids ear­ly to take reg­u­lar breaks, rest their eyes, and move their bod­ies to off­set these risks. A ​“brain break” every 15 to 20 min­utes can help pre­vent the irri­tabil­i­ty and slug­gish­ness that comes with exces­sive screen time.
• Par­ents should have access to pass­words, PINs, and sign-in infor­ma­tion AT ALL TIMES. Teens will not appre­ci­ate this. But even if they pay for their own device and/​or inter­net ser­vice, it is sim­ply unsafe for them to have this degree of pri­va­cy. Make this non-negotiable.
• Par­ents should check phones and devices on a dai­ly basis, espe­cial­ly at first. When your child has earned your trust, these checks can be less fre­quent and on a more ran­dom basis.
• FOL­LOW THE AGE GUIDE­LINES FOR VIDEO GAMES. THEY ARE THERE FOR A REA­SON. I’m sor­ry I keep yelling at you, it’s just that I think this is one of the MOST FRE­QUENT­LY (there I go again) over­looked guidelines.
• Though it may be hard to iden­ti­fy exact­ly when your child is ready for this kind of priv­i­lege – remem­ber it is just that, a priv­i­lege, not a right – their behav­ior can tell you when they aren’t. Sneak­ing, lying, and break­ing the agreed upon rules are signs that your child is not ready. These behav­iors sug­gest it might be nec­es­sary to reduce time lim­its and pro­vide more super­vi­sion and mon­i­tor­ing of their elec­tron­ic use.

For addi­tion­al age-spe­cif­ic guide­lines, check out: Inter­net Safe­ty 101: Age-Based Guidelines

Thanks for reading!

Nik­ki