How do parents appropriately regulate electronics?

As crazy as this sounds, constantly minimizing screen time might very well be your greatest challenge. I always tell parents as long as you’re communicating respectfully, and your expectations are reasonable and fair, your youngster knows you are not doing anything wrong. Nearly every child understands the difference between good/bad, right/wrong, fair/unfair and reasonable/unreasonable, so when you set and uphold appropriate screen time parameters, it is your offspring’s responsibility to get okay with it. 

“I’m bored…” our kids eventually will moan after we’ve told them “time is up”. Tell them to grab a broom and watch them miraculously find something else to do. It is not your job to entertain your offspring, especially once they are in third grade. It’s okay to partner with your children to generate some options, but do not feel like it is your pronounced responsibility. They ultimately will seek other ways to spend their time (maybe even with family!), and hopefully a decent amount will be allocated to something either independently productive, or being with other kids involved in some kind of social undertaking, from sports, to dance, to something creative, to cruising around the neighborhood. And for older kids a job if they aren’t in a hyper-competitive sport/activity or numerous hyper-advanced classes. 

An unprecedented standard of quality parenting is consistency. Therefore, the earlier in your child’s life you set fair protocols and regularly enforce them, the easier it is to parent. If your child naturally is cooperative, when telling him or her screen time is over, that kid most likely will comply without much push back. However, if your darling child naturally is more strong-willed, it absolutely is in your best interest to create structure and be super consistent with time reinforcement. Also, you must remain calm when informing your youngster it’s time to put down the device. In my book, Tri-C Parenting, not only do I cover in detail how to communicate effectively when a kiddo is being obstinate, but I also talk about other valuable factors that come into play with the importance of limiting screen time and technology. 

Recreational (non-educational/academic) screen time suggestions: 

“As long as responsibilities are being taken care of.”

• Toddlers up to third grade: no more than a few hours a day.
• Third to fifth grade: two hours on school days, up to four hours a day on weekends.
• Middle and high school age: two hours on school days, up to five or six hours a day on weekends.

Five hours a day may sound like a lot, but if your kid jumps on a video game at 10AM and plays straight through, then it’s all over by 3PM. If your middle-schooler stays up until 11PM on a Saturday, that leaves eight hours to do other things. Let the kid decide how he or she would like to distribute screen time each day. You most likely will need to monitor somewhat but that’s okay, nobody said responsible parenting was easy.  And new software & apps can help tremendously.