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Tips for Limiting Screen Time

Written By: The Good and the Beautiful Published On:

Technology brings a wealth of information to our fingertips, but overuse of screen time has become an issue for many families. Jenny Phillips shares her family’s journey to limiting screen time and gives six tips to help families find joy in learning and exploring through books, nature, and play in this encouraging video and blog post.

How We Spend Our Time

We have one beautiful life to live, and so do our children. It’s amazing to consider how much God gave us in this world that we can learn and experience. Time is ours, and we choose how it’s spent. As the minutes and hours make up our lives, one of the greatest thieves of time and potential is overuse of media. In fact, I believe the overuse of media is a widespread, destructive plague in our day, causing behavioral problems and mental health issues. It also leads children and families away from healthy relationships and a fullness of life.

It seems easy to use screens to occupy children in the moment, but it is more difficult in the end. I know this now, which is why I am sharing this video. I hope it leaves you feeling empowered to choose a different path with your child, a path that will lead you to greater joy and ease.

Before I started homeschooling, I was walking down the hall of my son’s school, reading essays that were hung up. They were about what the children had enjoyed most about their summer break. Essay after essay was about the video games the children had played and what level they had gotten to. I wondered, “Where are the books they read? Where is the play? Where are the forts and the rock collections?” 

I would guess that most parents have overused screen time at one time or another, and it’s always good to step back and evaluate. The truth is, there were times I had let my children overuse media. But I learned something profound when I made a change. 

Let me read you this journal entry.

I have found, at times, when I haven’t been as good at controlling my children’s time with technology, that they don’t know what to do with themselves when I turn it off. I remember one day, with new resolution, I went and turned off the TV and the computer games and told my kids that we were going to be changing our habits, and the TV and computer were usually going to remain off. My kids flopped around on the couches and the floor as if their lives were over. One of them was literally crying, one of them was moaning, and the other was glaring at me. I prodded them and tried to get them to do other activities, and they didn’t want to do anything. However, within a few days, they were using their imaginations again to create. They were reading more, and we were spending more time together as a family. Instead of seeing my children sitting in front of the TV, I saw these things: the books taken off our bookshelves and made into a multi-level doll’s house, a hallway filled with three different little makeshift stores with three little children trading and pretending to sell arts and crafts they had just made, a little girl outside examining the leaves on the tree branches, a teenage girl painting a beautiful scene she saw in an old book. Turning off technology and filling that time with better things are some of the greatest gifts I gave to my children.

Six tips for changing screen time habits with your own children.

1. Trust the Process

It is a process, and it will take time. It’s going to be hard at first, and it will take commitment and follow-through from you. 

2. Discuss It as a Family

Sit down and talk with your family in love. Express to your children how much you care for them. Tell them about the kind of life you want for them and gently explain the consequences and damage that can come from too much media entertainment. They might not take it well at first, but they will remember your words and your love and your sincerity. 

3. Set Clear Limits

Sometimes you have to detox children from screen time completely for awhile to see the best results. If you do allow some screen time or when you bring some back, make the limits very clear to your children. For example, “We only watch this number of movies a week,” or “We only play on the device for this many minutes each day after your work is done.” That way, your children aren’t constantly asking you and wanting to get on media. If they know the limits and you stick to them, they are going to be more likely to go off happily with more creative activities. 

4. Keep Kids Busy

Don’t let children have too much downtime without nature or the means to create. And remember that play, which is so healthy for children, is even more enjoyable after doing hard work such as practicing piano or helping with chores. Keeping children active and contributing to household work that uses their minds and bodies will really help your endeavors to not overuse screen time. 

5. Model Creativity

For children who are used to screen time, they may need to be taught how to be creative. Model for them how to create, explore, and imagine.

6. Be an Example

This last one is hard! You should model healthy media consumption for your kids. Perhaps you can start with setting screen time limits on your phone. You can make an effort to turn your phone to silent when your children ask you to be involved in their play.You might also set a rule for yourself to turn off your phone at a certain time of the day. I highly suggest talking to your children about your own desires to control media in your life. Say things like, “I’ve just made a goal to start reading a biography every night instead of watching a show.” Then follow up with your children and tell them what you learned. Be open about when you have gotten out of balance with media and what you’re doing to fix it and get back in line.

Implementing Change

Implementing these six tips can have a profound impact on your children. Also, please note that for some families, especially when media habits have been quite out of control, it can be helpful to remove the temptation altogether. It’s hard to limit oneself to one movie or to get out of the habit of turning on the TV. But when the TV subscription is canceled, or the TV is gone, or the social media account has been temporarily disabled, the decision is already made. Like I said earlier, it seems easy to use screens to occupy children, but it is more difficult in the end. It takes more of your time and effort to provide your children with healthier options to best use their time. But the rewards are so worth it. 

What do you want your children to think about their summer and what mattered most to them? What do you want to matter most in their lives? Video games? Movies? Or is it nature and family and God and learning and creating? If you are intentional in how you use media in your home and increase your family’s time spent with good books and the beautiful things of childhood, I promise you that it will fundamentally change your children. They will be different. They will be strong. They will be creative. They will have better behavior and be easier to raise in the long run. They will be more interested in life and in learning.

Find this and other inspirational and encouraging videos from Jenny Phillips on The Good and the Beautiful YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe for the latest updates!

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