Screen Free Mindset

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Cultivating a screen free mindset is the first step to helping your kids develop a healthy relationship with technology. Today, you’ll learn what it means to have a screen free mindset (it doesn’t mean no screens ever!) and how to get started setting new limits with your family.

As a parenting coach, I’ll never tell you what your values should be or what you should or shouldn’t do. My goal is to help you understand what your values are and give you strategies to help your life align with the values you choose. 

Ultimately, what I stand for is raising kids in a way that does not cause harm. As more research comes out about technology and screen use, we’re seeing that too much screen use actually does harm children. 

There aren’t a lot of protections for kids in the virtual world. Tech companies aren’t interested in limiting children's use because they get more money and data from that use. This means that it falls to parents to create those limits.

Today, I’ll provide some best practices for kids and screens. While you may not approach technology use in exactly the same way I have with my family, I hope this information will help you figure out what you want your family’s guidelines to be. 

Screen Use Best Practices

When it comes to things like sleep and nutrition, most of us have a general idea of what kids need. You can use those guidelines as a baseline ideal. You know how you want your kids to eat and how much sleep you want them to get, but you also know that some days will be closer to that ideal than others. 

The Centers for Disease Control, Pediatrics Magazine and the Journal of Adolescent Health (among others) are starting to establish similar guidelines for kids and screens. For our purposes, screens include tv, phone, tablet, computer or any other devices. 

Here’s what they’ve laid out by age:

• 0 to 3 years old - no screens
• 3 to 7 years old - 30-60 minutes per day
• 7 to 12 years old - about an hour a day
• 12 to 15 years old - 1.5 hours per day
• 16 and older - 2 hours per day

Currently, most kids ages 5 and up are getting around 5 hours per day of discretionary screen time - far beyond the recommended amount.

And studies have shown that kids who have more than the recommended amount of screen time tend to have worse executive functioning, declines in academic performance, delayed language development and detrimental effects on social and emotional growth. They are also more likely to have obesity, sleep disorders, or mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. 

Screen Free Mindset

If this is a little overwhelming to you, you’re not alone. Kids love screens, and you’re a busy mom. It’s hard to manage the time and boredom and all of it. But you can start with small changes, including the way you think about screens and your family.  

Screen free mindset means that you make an intentional decision that your child's free, unstructured time should be screen free as the default choice. For example, if you’re waiting at the doctor’s office or in a restaurant, rather than handing them your phone, you decide that it will be screen-free time. 

The idea is that, instead of automatically giving screen time as the default, you are being intentional about when people are allowed to use screens in your family.  

Try thinking about it like this: When you think about your child’s diet, you plan meals, and dessert is a bonus. With a screen free mindset, devices are the dessert - not an essential. 

There is an opportunity cost every time your child uses a device. That means they could be using that time to do something else with their brain and body, including:

• Moving their bodies
• Free play
• Outdoor time
• Reading, writing or drawing
• Interacting with people face-to-face 

Screen free time gives kids opportunities to find other ways to entertain themselves and cope with hard moments or feelings without using technology as a pacifier. It also allows them to practice waiting, impulse control and attention to their bodies. 

Kids are wired to create and explore and be bored. Your work is to cultivate the mindset that most of your child’s life is going to be screen free.

Managing Screen Time

If your child has been using screens more than the recommended amount, I don’t want you to stress out or feel ashamed. You’re a great parent, and you have lots of time. They are still developing. 

The goal now is to work on that screen free mindset and create more screen free, unstructured time for your kid. 

Here are some guidelines and strategies to follow:

Set new boundaries, including physical boundaries. Decide what limits you want to put in place. When will your kid have access to screens - how often and for how long? What devices are allowed? What limits will you set on maturity ratings? Are there conditions they’ll need to meet before screen time (e.g. homework or chores done, have played outside and moved their body, etc.)?

When it comes to physical boundaries, think out of sight, out of mind. One way to avoid kids sneaking screens is to keep them in a locked safe or cabinet during screen free times. 

A few other things to consider are:

• Parental controls. Get familiar with how you can block certain content or sites, including social media and YouTube. 
• Don’t allow screens in bedrooms. If you do, make sure devices are turned in before bedtime. 
• Be aware of your own screen use. You might be looking up a recipe for dinner or responding to an important message, but to your kid, device use all looks the same. You might even decide to set limits for yourself when it comes to scrolling social media or other discretionary screen time.

Communicate the new limits with confidence. Commitment and confidence are the keys to success. Let them know that this is how your family will be doing things from now on, and stick to it. There will be some resistance, frustration and complaining. You can handle it. 

Show compassion. When your kid is complaining or arguing, you might be tempted to punish them. Try to allow for those big feelings and realize that they are a part of the boredom gap. If problems are created during that big feeling cycle, you can follow up with consequences as usual.

The truth is that creating these new limits can be really challenging, especially if you are resetting from some overuse. Your kids will probably resist these new rules, but I want you to know that that difficulty is temporary. 

Your child will be able to overcome that need for quick satisfaction. Let them work through it and trust that on the other side is more peace and ease. 

Trust that your values of creating an emotionally healthy kid are the most important. It can be hard, but it's worth it.

You’ll Learn:

• The problems with too much screen time
• Screen time best practices for kids of all ages
• How I managed screen time for my kids from the early days through the teen years
• Guidelines to help you adopt a screen free mindset
• Examples of limits around screen use (including what to do when they won’t turn it off)

Resources:

• Episode 128 - Encouraging Boredom
• National Institutes of Health - National Library of Medicine