This week, the Pew Research Center published a study about how parents organized a screen time for their 12 years and younger children. The results were not particularly surprising (or if we are honest then enlightenment). 90 % of parents said their children watch TV, and 61 % said their children at least talk with smartphones on this occasion. To some extent, it is surprising that only 50 % said they allowed them to play some kind of game console. While 42 % of the respondents said they could manage their children’s screen time better, 86 % said they had rules around the screens, even if they were not always upset.
What you will not get in the Pew Studi are the same principles. That is, a certain percentage of parents never allows their children to watch TV as they see useful information, as they see, what they see, or how parents make sure they are not seeing anything inappropriate.
With our eight -year -old child we have imposed a kind of barter system I took from Greg MacCon, the writer Essentials. They start with 10 tokens per week, costing a total of $ 5 or five hours. They can read extra time or money. How they use this time depends on them, they can play or watch shows on their children’s accounts on Disney+, Netflix, or Paramount+. They also have access to some music making apps and games on their iPads. But we do not allow them to have baseless access to the iPad.
Lest I would think that I rule my children’s screen time with iron first, I get an hour of TV (mostly academic) TV in the youngest one day, so we can help the oldest in their homework peacefully. And every week we have a family movie night, and we choose what we see this week.
It also shows how much time the children spend in front of the screen is not the biggest concern. Time limits were common, but not universal.
It seemed that parents had the biggest problem, what the children did with their screen time. Social media was a major concern, 80 % of the survey respondents said it did more damage than good. What is somewhat shocking is that 15 % said that their children use trickyak, though the use of other platforms like Instagram and Facebook was very low, only 5 %. 74 % said they saw YouTube with their children, while only 15 % said their children did not see YouTube at all.
In the case of the tools tools to handle the time, taking the good old device away or pressing the power button was the most popular. However, some especially use Apple’s screen time tools to limit the use of iPads.
Phones with young children were not common. The Pew survey found that only 29 % of parents have allowed their 8 to 10 years of age to keep their smartphone. But, once children kill their adolescents, they become more common.
Remember, there is no correct answer to how to raise your children. What works for one parent, may not be for the other. We are all doing our best. Or at least 58 % of us think that we are, according to Pew.
