Screen Time and Your Kids

How much is appropriate and when?

With the drastic increase in technology that has happened over the past few years, parents are often left with questions about what's healthy for their children and teens. GBMC primary care physician Dr. Rajani Tadimalla and WPOC radio host Michael J On Air answer your questions about how much screen usage is too much and how to help your kids form healthy screen habits.

The seemingly simple question "at what age should I let my child have a cell phone?" doesn't have a simple answer. According to Dr. Tadimalla, maturity is much more important than age. Parents should ask themselves whether or not they trust their child to safely use cell phones and the Internet. Your children may experience a lot of peer pressure from their friends and once they have unlimited access to the internet, it's very difficult to monitor whether or not the content they are viewing is age appropriate.

Despite these gray areas, there are standard recommendations for screen times that have been put out by the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP). According to the AAP, children under the age of 18 months shouldn't be exposed to any screen time. Children between the ages of 2 and 6 should have a maximum of one hour of screen time per day. When children are in these formative stages of their lives, they are developing fine motor skills and need to physically be active rather than watching a screen.

Once they get past the age of 6, parents need to ease their children into the media world rather than giving them full access right away. It is important to set clear ground rules about what they are and are not allowed to do. Dr. Tadimalla suggests giving your kids a test run with WiFi access to see if they follow the rules that you have set and use the Internet appropriately. Treat screen time as a privilege and take the privilege away if your child doesn't follow the rules that you have set for them.