Technology and Balancing Screen Time with Your Kids

Let’s talk about technology! The @nytimes just released their new family tech guide and we appreciate their balanced approach and their reminder that the subject of screen time, both for our kids and ourselves, will need to be re-evaluated again and again as our children get older.

Take a look at their section for “Babies under 2” and “Toddlers and Preschoolers (2–5)” (Link here: https://nyti.ms/2Nbj3ZB). The biggest takeaways for us are:

1) Keep tech usage to a bare minimum.

2) Think about alternatives to screens that we can offer our babies when we need some time to take care of our own tasks.

3) Co-watch high-quality shows or co-play with interactive apps, taking photos, or looking at family photos when we do give them screen time.

For alternatives to screen time, check out some of the activities in the Playfully app. When you set up your child’s profile, we tailor the activity suggestions to your child’s age as well as the milestones she is currently working on. Download the app here: https://playfully.app.link/4lplfZiRpK.

When you co-view media with your children, you can help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them. Choose high-quality programming that is short, gentle and has positive messages about topics your kids can relate to — such as daily routines and interactions with friends. When you watch together, you can bond over funny moments and can talk about what you notice the characters doing. You can even leverage the story-line to help your child when they encounter similar scenarios in the real world (Like how I sang the Daniel Tiger song “When we do something new, let’s talk about what we’ll do” to help my daughter transition to her new school!)

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