Screen Free Week Impossible – Try Screen Awareness

Corinn Cross, M.D.

National Screen Free Week is upon us again.  It begins today, Monday May 5^th, and concludes Sunday May 11th.

All families are encouraged to observe Screen Free Week but as our culture becomes increasingly intertwined with screens, how to limit screen time and increase awareness has become immensely more challenging.

Originally, Screen Free week was TV Turn-off week. Easy enough, 1 week, no TV.  But now screens are everywhere and needed for everything, emails, social networking. They are used in school for school work and communicating with parents and often needed for homework.  It seems almost impossible to go an entire day, never mind a week without using a screen.

So, what is a common sense parent to do?

Understand the reasoning behind Screen Free week. Although some screen time is at this point necessary for most teens and adults, there are ways that we can scale back unnecessary screen time and open up more time for other activities:  reading, socializing in person with friends and family, going outside, exercising.

I think a more appropriate name for the upcoming week would be Screen Awareness Week. In this way, the task seems much more manageable. Use Screen Free week to take an inventory of how much time you and your family are spending on screens and try instituting plans on how to monitor that time and dedicate screen free periods throughout the day.

To take advantage of Screen Free Week and make it successful in your home, start by making a plan and having a goal. Discuss with your family the expectations and limits for the week.

Simple suggestions for families include:

• Designate a drop area for cell phones when you walk in the door. Cell phones should go here during screen free times and at night to charge.  Cell phones should not be left in a child or teens room overnight to charge, but should be either in a public room or the parent’s bedroom.
• Set a time or times throughout the day when you will not use screens, laptops or smartphones. Ideally for Screen Free week this would be all the time that a child is home but realistically most families may find that a shorter period of time is both do-able and more importantly sustainable. Start with 2 or 3 hours once you get home from school - unless it is for homework, and of course no screens or phones during dinner
• Disconnect from unnecessary digital interactions. Take a week vacation from social networking sites and surfing the web. Use this time to discuss privacy settings and appropriate on-line behavior with your children and teens.
• Check in with your kids about cyber-bullying and what to do if they experience it or more likely, witness it.  
• Turn the TV off for 1 week and when you go back to TV remember no screen time for children under 2 years of age and only 2 hours of TV for older kids and teens.

Use Screen Free Week as an opportunity to reassess your family’s media use. At the end of the week, discuss with your family how the week went. Was it easier or harder than expected?  What changes do you want to continue with as a family? Did any of the changes you made have a positive impact? You may find that you would like to have a TV free night once a week or an hour or two every evening when all screens are turned off.  Most families find that when they can disconnect -- even a little, they can reconnect with each other a whole lot.

For more information about Screen Free Week, check out the American Academy of Pediatrics parent’s website healthychildren.org.

6 Ways to Moderate Screen Time in your Home

Melissa Arca MD, FAAP

The upcoming week, April 29^th to May 5^th, is National Screen Free week. We can encourage parents through our practices and through the media to use this week as an opportunity to make a media use plan, set guidelines, rules and expectations as to how their family will use media and screens for the rest of the year.

We’re living in a media world. No doubt about that. In fact, media follows us wherever we go these days. And our kids are honestly the most savvy among us. They get the hang of navigating iPhones and the various apps faster than you can figure out what your password is.

Media is here to stay and for the most part, it’s a great thing and has led to greater efficiency, communication, and sharing of valuable information.

But we knew there would be a down side. Our children are as fascinated and addicted as ever. We absolutely must moderate their media consumption and make sure the good outweighs the bad.

This is something my husband and I struggle with on a daily basis. We certainly don’t want them magnetically connected to some form of electronics for a good part of the day. So we have rules. Not always easy to enforce, but important and well worth the effort.

Set timers

I have found this to be the best and least confrontational way to set time limits on my kids’ media time. Whenever they sit down with one of their favorite TV episodes or need to hop on Dad’s iPad for a quick Minecraft game, I set a timer. I tell them ahead of time how long the timer is being set for (usually 20-30 minutes) and when it goes off, we move on to another activity.

Aim for no more than 2 hours total screen time per day. When you think about it, that’s actually a lot during a busy week of school, homework, and extracurricular activities. To help getting them to bed on time…turn off all media 1 hour before bedtime. Studies have shown this will help everyone get to sleep (and stay asleep) faster.

Get involved

Know what games and shows your children are playing/watching. Be sure they are age-appropriate and not filled with violent acts. Check Common Sense Media whenever you’re in doubt as you can find just about any movie, show, game, app, or book to determine age-appropriateness.

Play with them too. What about a game of bowling on the xBox or watching their favorite show with them? Being able to take part in something they enjoy will be a great time of connecting, instead of feeling disconnected.

Go outside

When everyone starts complaining that they’re bored, and why can’t we play our favorite video game?…head outside. It’s the best cure I know for whining, grumpiness, and complaints of boredom.

Be a good role model

Want your kids to spend most of their day screen-free? Well, I hate to break it to you, but then you must too! I am so guilty of constantly checking my phone for new emails, almost to the point of obsession that it gets to be ridiculous.

Put down that mobile media. Turn off the TV. And practice what you preach.

As a bonus, do your best to spend the weekends off social media. When I started doing this…wow…it was amazing how much more quality time I had with my family and more time to get to some much needed household chores.

Have screen-free zones

No TV’s or other electronics in the bedrooms. No screens (including, or especially, phones) at the dinner table. I am so adamant about these screen-free zones that just the other day I scolded my husband for bringing his iPad into our son’s room while we did some bedtime reading.

 I do not budge on this rule.

Be flexible

Rules are good but it’s also good to have some leeway. So, while I’m pretty strict about our screen-free zones, I’m pretty lax about the amount of screen time our kids (and us) get on the weekends. We love Friday night movie night and waking up Saturday morning watching cartoons, drinking coffee, and reading the paper.

Rules are great…but sometimes, they really are meant to be broken.

Turnoff Week - September 19th-25th

By Corinn Cross, MD FAAP

Next week, September 19-25th, is National Turnoff Week. Parents are encouraged to use this upcoming week as a seven-day hiatus from televisions, video games, web surfing etc. Instead, families are encouraged to spend a screen-free week together.

Turnoff Week is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Council on Communications and Media. The most recent statistics show that the average American child spends over 1000 hours a year watching TV and playing video games. To put that in perspective, they only spend 900 hours a year in school. Television, video games, computers and now cell phones are becoming an increasing part of everyday life for the American child. Although there may be many advantages of living in such a technological era, there are well-documented detriments as well.

America is quickly becoming a nation of overweight individuals, and obesity is highly correlated with increased screen-time. Studies have shown that children who spend 4-6 hours a day in front of screens have a higher risk of being obese. All this screen-time is at the expense of less time spent playing sports, doing outdoor activities, reading and having family time.

Pediatricians can help parents by encouraging families to take part in Turnoff Week. As pediatricians, we can discuss the challenges of implementing a screen-free week and provide families with tools to help make the week successful.

1. Have a plan for each day in order to help keep children occupied.
2. Encourage outdoor play.
3. Schedule a family game night.
4. Involve children in dinner. Allow them to create a menu and help with the cooking.
5. Go on a family outing. Fall is a great time to go apple picking or to a pumpkin patch.
6. Plan a trip to the library.

These are just a few ideas of ways to pass seven days without a television. As the Turnoff slogan goes, "Turn off TV. Turn on life."