What is the recommended maximum time to allow screen time on a daily basis? And how does this change from age to age?
You know, I don't know if there's a recommended time. I think it's more about what's happening on our devices.
During COVID, for example, our children were almost required to be online—either watching classes or doing homework. Contrast that with today, where they're back in person. What are they actually doing on their devices? If it's homework, that's very different than playing video games or chatting with friends. And sometimes—I've seen this more and more in my own children—they're watching something and trying to chat back and forth with friends. It's just so much information.
So my suggestion is to have specific times where we’re without our phones or devices. For example: no phones at the dinner table. Phones go to bed at 9 or 9:30. We're creating an environment with intentional boundaries where we say, “We're not going to have phones during these times.”
Then we ask: Are we getting other tasks done? Homework? Are they interacting socially? We’re trying to teach our children to have balance. I don't necessarily want to put a timeframe on it. I want to ask: Are we creating balance?
If all their time is spent on video games or chatting with friends and not engaging with the family, those are the times when I’d say, “Let’s connect more.” Invite their friends over. I’d love for their friends to come spend time with the family. Let’s play games—video or board games—even in the same room. The point is to be together.
I’m really hesitant to set a time limit. I'm more interested in whether we're creating other positive, productive experiences that help develop social skills.
One of the best things we can do as parents and educators is to teach our children social skills: how to listen, understand others, develop empathy and compassion, speak honestly, and set boundaries when something feels off. The skills we want to teach are relationship skills.
We need to educate and inform about these because culturally, we've moved away from developing them. It’s easy to disappear as a parent while a child is glued to a device, not even noticing you’re gone. So we need to be creating experiences together. “Hey, let's go do something as a family—go to the park, go swimming,” or whatever. You’re creating experiences.
That’s the approach I recommend, rather than saying, “You get one or two hours.” Let’s focus on developing life skills. I don’t mind if they’re playing games, as long as we’re doing it intentionally—with structure and boundaries. That feels much more relational.
One last thing I’d say to everyone here tonight: relationships before rules. We can set rule after rule, but more important is the relationship. If you develop that connection with your child, then the conversations are far more productive and effective—because they know you care about them and the relationship.
