![]() ![]() The underdiscussed upsides of screen time for kidsīut don’t think of technology just in terms of screen time.What we know now about screen time for kids.But 1.5 hours of screen time goes fast when we need to keep our kid engaged every day while we work, make dinner, clean the house or do any of the other thousands of daily responsibilities a parent might have. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health organization recommend children ages 6–10 get no more than 1.5 hours of screen time each day. Screens can be a useful way to entertain or educate our kids, but too much screen time is bad, even when it’s focused on educational outcomes. If our goal is for our kids to be entertained and learn without screens, while it may sound counterintuitive, technology can help us do that. Not only do we have more control than we think, but technology is also creating more options for us as parents. But that’s a narrow way to think about it. It’s easy to look at the ways technology is coming at our kids like a thunderstorm: nothing we can do about it except hunker down and try to mitigate the problems it can create. As parents, it’s time we remember that technology can also work for us. But thinking that way is not very fun for kids or parents. When we got a Nintendo Switch for the family over Christmas, my wife and I were worried about screen time, but were pleasantly surprised to see all the built-in parental controls that Nintendo has included.Īs a parent who is concerned about the negative impact of screen time on my kids, I’ve seen it as my duty to find ways to limit, control and monitor any technology that my kids interact with. ![]() I’m not sure if there is anything my 7-year-old son loves to do more than play Minecraft. ![]()
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