Guilty Giving Kids Screen-time To Get Things Done? You’re not alone.
Tips to engage kids better and avoid their screen-time mania.
I hear you, Mommy and Daddy. Both of you work hard to give your kids a better life. You try to get down nutritious breakfast on the table for the kids, even though you tend to skip breakfast and plan on having a brunch later because you’re late. You drop off your kid(s) to preschool or school and drive off to your workplace. You often think about what your child is doing at school and whether he/she has had lunch. You fear that the lunch box is coming back half-eaten or worse untouched because your child does not eat without watching that favorite cartoon.
Back home, you feel exhausted and see your fear that is now a reality. The child’s box is almost untouched. You sip your cuppa thinking about dinner plans, as you ask your child to finish the food.
The child says –” No.” You give some alternate options of fruit, oats, noodles, and so on. She wants noodles but with the TV. And you open your other child’s box and see the same story repeat.
You switch that TV on, with anger mixed with helplessness, wondering how it all started. You still have some meetings to finish, a few emails to reply and get dinner ready. Phew! I’ll stop here. Your story matches with mine (and every parent’s) at least partly.
I won’t lie. My elder one (daughter) has had terrible eating habits, and we are to blame mostly. She was cared for by my mom than me till she was 6. We lived close to my parents as my husband and I rushed to work at 7 or 8 AM. My then 55-year-old mom, or occasionally visiting mil (who was older), didn’t have that much energy to run around my toddler and get her to eat her meals in one place. They gave her screen-time, and food went in quickly.
After we returned from work, it was no different. My husband and I just sat in front of the TV with our dinner and allowed her to watch her favorite shows, fed her quickly so we could sleep soon.
Soon after she turned 6, we welcomed our second child, and I decided to take a break from my 9–5 routine. It was then I realized how bad my daughter’s screen addiction problem was.
Our son turned a relatively better eater and almost ate with zero fuss until about 1.5 years. If he didn’t eat a meal, I just left him for a while till he came back for it. I avoided giving him screen time as he was a good eater and could play by himself for one hour after he had eaten a proper meal. But he also started getting attracted to the colorful screen watching his sister, especially during the summer holidays. One month of summer holidays had passed, and my son wanted his slot for rhymes.
It took much effort to reduce her screen consumption to 30 minutes per day. We had to compromise on our screen time too. Because we all have the same sleeping time, so somehow putting kids to bed and then catching up on a movie does not work for us. We charted out and planned activities for her after school. I’ve listed the alternatives that worked for us.
For starters, here are the avoidable adverse effects of screen time (not that you don’t know) to build some awareness, which is a force by itself to drive to stop the addiction.
When we tried to explain these in simple language, my girl could understand why we were pleading with her to stop watching videos.
Myopia(Short-sight)
Children between six months to 4 years worldwide are getting exposed to smart or touch screens. If you give your kids screen time, make sure there is at least the recommended distance from the TV while viewing. Here is a handy ideal distance calculator from the TV. According to several research reports around the world, too much screen time causes short-sightedness or myopia.
Cross-eyed or strabismus
Doctors from Chonnam National University Hospital, Seoul, South Korea, tested nearly 350 children between ages 7–16 in a study. They found that the kids who placed the phones less than 12 inches away from their eyes and had a screen time of more than 3–4 hours every day will face temporary or permanent cross-eyes(squint).
The eyes can return to normal if the child is kept away from screens for a month or two. My daughter even showed signs of cross-eyedness. I can vouch that my daughter’s eyes returned to normalcy(almost) after we decided on 30 minutes of screen time. We stopped screen time for 15–20 days and then started 30 minutes, to be frank.
Dry eyes
Research shows that when our mind needs to concentrate, we blink less. Children and even adults barely blink when intensely following a video show. Lubricating the eye and ridding it of dust and other irritants is the primary function of blinking. So when we blink less, our eyes make less tears, and it can cause dry eyes that further lead to eye irritation, fatigue, and exhaustion.
If our job requires long hours in front of the laptop screen, we are also equally prone to dry eyes.
Loss of appetite
It might be tempting to handover that Ipad to get the child to eat without fuss. And you can also do a bit of multitasking(checking emails, household chores). As per few popular studies, TV viewing can either increase or decrease preschool children’s food intakes. TV viewing reduced energy intake during meals and snacks for some children. For other children, particularly children accustomed to eating during TV viewing, it increased intake compared with the situation in which eating occurred in the absence of TV viewing.
This finding suggests the possibility that children who eat while watching TV may become less sensitive to internal cues to satiety.
To promote self-regulation of energy intake in young children, parents and caregivers should avoid providing opportunities for children to eat during TV viewing. I could relate to this problem as we experienced this first hand for years with our elder one.
Another study points that even adults get manipulated if there is a distraction during eating leading to reduced meal memory. And if we are focussing our attention on eating, it decreases later snacking.
Sleep disruption
The blue light from TV screens and mobile screens can suppress sleep-inducing melatonin in the body, leading to sleeplessness or insomnia in teens and even tweens.
Another point to consider is; what they watch before sleep can cause sleeping issues. If they watched something disturbing, they might not sleep or urinate in bed too. So turn off those screens and disable even message notifications one hour before bedtime for a sound sleep. Instead, grab a book or make up a story and see them fall asleep peacefully.
Sleep recommendation for kids as a guideline: Toddlers need 11–14 hours of sleep, preschoolers 10–13 hours of sleep, while school kids can do with 9–12 hours of sleep, and teens need about 8–10 hours of sleep.
Tantrums
Screen-addicted kids tend to snack too often on junk food. And it’s not surprising to see such kids usually don’t like family meals. The reason would be they are not hungry enough at the dinner table, or they(eyes especially) feel tired and exhausted already.
So, I keep snacks to a zero or a bare minimum when watching TV. So they feel hungry enough to eat without any distraction. It took me months, but it happened. 😊
Demands screen time during vacation or outing.
We traveled as often as possible, and it was problematic without screen time for our elder one who was addicted way too much. She has lived on milkshakes or French fries during vacations, much to our dismay. Even at a friends’ or family gettogether, it was tough to get her to eat without screen-time. But the consistent practice of giving proper food and ONLY when hungry has solved it. I’m sure it can work for anyone with time.
On to the practical (sorry, no magic) steps to get your Lil ones off the screen.
My kids went through a screen de-addiction campaign, and they don’t think about it as their second nature. So it is a win so far. Things we implemented to bring about the changes and hope you can copy a trick or two from our books. Most activities don’t require any investment, and even if it does, it eventually pays off for itself. But it works. I’ll tell you all about them.
For the toddler,
- Animated storytelling by us, with or without the books, is making him quite an actor. We create our own stories for him in our language, using things around us. He relates to them better. It is not that difficult, and the stories we make are more engaging than a storybook with characters the child cant connect.
For instance, he likes excavators, dump trucks, and heavy vehicles. We make up stories with them. We’ve also got a few picture storybooks of those heavy vehicles that he names those vehicles what we called them in our stories or his similar toy. For him, the book has another story about the character he already knows.
He is also fascinated by dinos. We made stories about a family getting stuck in dino land. He loved them so much that he kept asking for the same stories. We voice-recorded the story and played it when he asked. He listens to them and recites them himself now with utmost clarity, which is mind-boggling.
2. Memory Game (with vehicles. mind you!) has been our savior. It’s from Ravensburger for children aged 2.5 and up. Try them. They are chunky enough for little hands, and you can thank me later. 😉
3. Some great picture storybooks, including flap and pop-up books, are our kid’s favorite.
4. A swipe erasable slate for younger kids (<5) or an LCD slate can mean endless doodling. It is creative and worth it.
For our daughter,
5. We subscribed to Kindle audible, and luckily Audible still has many kids’ books to listen to for free as the schools were closed intermittently. We took advantage of it, and she has heard to Alice in Wonderland for free, then we even bought a couple — Emma series, The magic tree House series till now.
6. Pick up the Geronimo Stilton series if you get a chance. She has kept up with reading, and she has downed the books more than twice now. They are apt for ages 6–10. If you have Kindle Unlimited(KU), several kids’ books are free to borrow and read.
7. I started a podcast to encourage her to read. We recorded stories and shared them with our and even her friends. We used the Anchor app to create podcasts, and they have free music for the podcast. We had super FUN!
8. Cycling on weekends is one favorite. But during winter, we settle for board games like Monopoly, Make or Break and several more.
9. Craft and painting are things kids love experimenting with, and my kids’ room is now a mini art gallery.
There will be a mess(massive), but it did not mess my mind that much as it did when they watched that damn dumb tab.
10. Dance and Music classes (even online), we found, made a ton of difference in her cognitive capability. And kids get to meet and make friends with the same interests, which is a huge plus. When the situation here is better, a sports activity is on the cards.
It is impossible to avoid the impact and effects of technology on us humans. It’s, therefore, better to leverage technology. You can consider games that improve logical thinking even if you allow some screen time.
We can help kids cut screen-time, enjoy playtime, and escape into storytime.
They are at risk of losing new experiences and can think on-screen life is real life. It is easy for them to succumb to screen time (like us), but it takes some worthwhile effort to engage them in more exciting pursuits. Let’s do this.
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