Where to start

STEP-BY-STEP

Making a big change as a family can be challenging. But once you've recognized that a change is needed, it's time to get started. There are four general steps that will help you get your family's screen time under control. 

Start with yourself and your partner. Be honest. Analyze your own screen habits and talk about what it is that needs to change. It's okay to want your children to get their screen time under control, but the only way to tackle that is to first start with the example you are setting as parents.

We recommend having a meeting with everyone in the family after a good, hearty meal to start the conversation.  Discuss the problem you want to solve. Talk about what the goal is. Get everyone on board with it.

Implement our recommendations (or tweak them to suit your family) and decide on guidelines as a family. Post these guidelines up in a location where everyone can see them.

Revisit, re-evaluate, and revise. After a few days have gone by, evaluate how things are going. Make any needed changes and keep going. It's not going to be easy at first, and that's okay.

STEP 1

Start with you

The first step is to look at yourself. What example are you, the parents, setting for your kids? Take a full day to pay extra attention to your own screen time, especially at home.

How often do your kids see you with your phone in your hand? Do you scroll through Instagram while waiting for water to boil for dinner? Do you pause in the middle of a conversation to answer a text or an email?

If you’re not setting an excellent example, then it’s important to start getting your screen usage under control before taking any steps with your family.

STEP 2

Get everyone on board

Once you know that you’re setting an excellent example—in other words, once your own screen usage models what you want for your kids—then you can start addressing the whole family.

Although this won’t be feasible in all cases, agreement is a great place to start. You’ve already realized that your family has a screen problem, but do your kids know it? (Does your partner know it?)

If you can get the whole family in agreement that something needs to change, implementing that change will go much more smoothly. 

One of the best ways to go about this is to first acknowledge your own shortcomings. Your kids (and partner) may be more aware of your screen addiction than they are of their own. They can probably remember times you stopped listening to what they were saying and looked at your phone instead, or times that they saw you scrolling right after you told them they’d had enough screen time.

Open the conversation with an honest assessment of what you need to work on, and have been working on, then turn the conversation to the whole family. They might need some help recognizing their own addiction. But it’s likely that they’re already aware, at least on some level, of the fact that there’s a problem.

Once they know that this is a safe, open, and honest conversation, they’ll be less defensive and more willing to talk about it. 

BUT, and here’s the tough truth, it may not go that way at all. If there’s a severe addiction, whether to video games, social media, or even email (cough cough, parents!), you probably won’t start out with willingness and agreement.

You will be the harsh, evil dictator removing all the joy from their lives and they will “hate you forever!” for taking their screens away. It’s tough. It’s really, really, REALLY not fun. But, it is so worth it. 

If that’s the situation you find yourself in, please know that 1) you are not alone, not by a long shot, and 2) you’re already doing better than many parents because you’re doing something about it.

And now that you know that, it’s time for the leap of faith: your kid gets NO screens. Period. End of story. It won’t be that way forever, but simply implementing guidelines doesn’t handle a severe addiction.

Guidelines teach and enforce moderation. Before moderation is a realistic possibility, the compulsion needs to disappear.

STEP 3

Agreements & Guidelines

Once the severe addiction is broken or, for a more mild situation, an agreement is reached that something needs to change, it’s time to work out family guidelines. Here are five key points to consider:

  1. Screen-free spaces, such as the bedrooms and the dining room,

  2. Screen-free times, such as first thing in the morning or right after coming home from work or school,

  3. Daily and weekly screen limits,

  4. Regulating specific types of screen time, such as video games and TV, and

  5. Family rules, such as looking away from your screen when another person is talking to you.

You can view our general recommendations below. But since every family is different, choose guidelines that are realistic for you and your family.

Even if they’re not perfect, realize that imperfect guidelines that your family will actually follow are better than perfect guidelines that nobody pays attention to.

Once you’ve decided on guidelines, post them somewhere everybody can see.

An often overlooked part of setting screen time rules is helping children (and parents) figure out what to do instead. If you’ve become accustomed to spending hours of your day being entertained by screens, it’s important to be proactive about lining up alternatives.

You’re on the Outside Project website, so you probably already know what we’re going to suggest: use this newly freed up time outside. We make it very easy with our daily outdoor activity prompts. You’ll never be at a loss for what to do. 

Even if you (or your children) don’t want to spend ALL of the time outside, line up some other alternatives: board games, learning how to flip pancakes using only the pan, full-house Nerf battles, drawing, painting, skit nights, etc. 

STEP 4

Maintain the Change

The final challenge is to maintain the change. The first several days may be tough, but they’ll be full of the energy that comes from a fresh idea. As days and weeks go by, your resolve may weaken. It’s important to take the time now to decide how you’re going to maintain this new standard.

It can be helpful once you’re a couple of weeks in to revisit, re-evaluate, and revise. 

Revisit your goals. Revisit your guidelines. How is everyone doing? Re-evaluate the original situation you were trying to solve and make any necessary revisions to your guidelines or agreements. 

Some families may choose to have a day unplugged once every month. 

It’s not so important how you choose to rejuvenate this goal, but it is important that you choose to.

It’s hard to raise a family free of screen addiction in today’s world, but you CAN do it. The world will be a better place because you did.

General Recommended Guidelines

  • If phones are not allowed at dinner, that includes parents. 

  • This means no iPads, no "educational tablets," no playing on mom or dad's phone, no TV, no video games. The occasional (once every couple of months) age-appropriate family movie night would be okay. 

    During these formative years, the most important influences on a child's development are the people they regularly see and interact with. Ensure that these are real people who live by principles you're okay with as a parent. 

    Once you introduce screens and electronic devices into your child's life, they're much more difficult to take away. By holding off as long as feasible, you'll be able to introduce appropriate devices at a time where your child is old enough to be able to understand and agree with the guard rails and guidelines you put into place. 

  • So-called "dumb phones" exist to bridge the gap between when your child is old enough to run around unsupervised but not old enough to be given unsupervised access to ALL of the world's information, good, bad, and ugly. 

  • Using the computer for homework assignments, watching a YouTube how-to video, or other such things can be helpful for children learning to use the internet as a tool, but these activities should take place under direct adult supervision. 

    Even beyond age 16, parental internet controls should be in place. This should include filters for inappropriate content and sites. 

  • Weeknights should be reserved for family activities, homework, and outside time. A weekly movie night can be great, but it should be done as a family activity on the weekend where it won't interfere with sleep or school. 

    This guidance assumes your children are more than 7 years old. 

  • These zones should be community spaces where conversation and real interaction are encouraged. This can include places like the dining room, the patio, etc.

  • The limits you set are going to vary based on the age of your children, but once you have them set, don't waver from them. If the limit is 30 minutes a day of video games or TV, that's the limit. No amount of begging, pleading, or negotiating should change that. 

    We have provided screen time recommendations for children based on their age here. 

  • Once your teen has demonstrated responsible use of the internet as a tool and you have had sufficient conversation about online security, they should only have a social media account on a platform that you as a parent are very familiar with.

    You should maintain full access to their account and be able to check on their privacy settings, who they're connected with, and what they're posting. 

Screen Time Recommendations
by Age

  • No screens, period. (The exception is video chatting, but even this should be limited to close relatives and people the child knows well. Ideally, this isn't a regular occurrence.)

  • No screens at home. If the child is at a friend’s or relative’s house, some screen time is okay in moderation on weekends or Friday nights such as for a movie night. 

  • Screens can be introduced at home, but only with parental involvement. Screen time happens in family spaces, not in bedrooms. As much as possible, screen time is centered around learning to use screens as tools (doing research together, learning to code, making digital art, learning a language).

    Any internet use is directly supervised, with content filters and parental controls enabled. 

    Screen time is limited to 2 hours total on the weekend. No weeknight screen time.

  • Same as ages 8-9 except screen time limits now include 20 minutes on weeknights.

  • Screen time without parental involvement is introduced, but screen time limits remain the same. No more than 50% of screen time is solo (meaning no parental involvement).

    Parental controls and content filters remain in place. 

  • A phone without an internet connection is permitted. No parental involvement for screen time is required. Screen time is limited to 30 minutes on weeknights and 2.5 hours total on weekends.

    Parental controls and content filters remain in place. 

  • An internet-connected phone can be introduced. No social media. Screen time limits remain the same. Parents maintain full access to the device and set up parental controls to limit access to inappropriate content. 

  • Social media permitted. Screen time is not monitored but is expected to stay under 10 hours weekly. Screen time limits and monitoring are reinstated if not self-regulated well enough.