Screen Time Rules That Actually Work (For Every Age)

0:00 As parents, I think we need a blueprint so that we don't spiral into guilt and panic when it comes to screen time. So today, we're going to go age by age, stage by stage, and ask ourselves what are the key kind of big picture rules we should be using to set boundaries around screen time at that particular age. Welcome back to the channel. I'm Avetal. I'm the founder of HighFam. I'm the mother of five and I'm here to help you to build a strong family culture. And one of the things that is the biggest impediment to our family cultures in today's day and age is screen addiction, screen time and all the boundaries and tantrums and difficulties we have around screens. So today we're going to actually really be breaking it down so that we don't have to panic and we don't have to feel guilty and get, you know, really strong, clear, compelling boundaries set at every stage of our children's life. If that sounds good to you, make sure that you've hit the subscribe button and the notification bell, please, and do leave me your comments below. You can ask me any question about screen usage in your own home, and I'll try to incorporate them into future videos. This is part of a series that I'm doing. And in this series, I'm trying to give you fresh perspectives and new ways of looking at our relationship with the screen. I'm not a technophobe. We love using screens in our home, but I also like to keep them within clear boundaries. I don't want them eating up my children's childhood. I don't want my children living a sedentary life or zombified or unable to think for themselves or constantly in passive entertainment, right? And I'm sure you don't want any of those things either. So, let's dive into it. And by the way, if you haven't yet watched episodes one and two of this series, you might want to go back and watch them after you complete this one.

1:43 So, let's talk about the very early stages. Maybe you're here because you've just become a parent and you have a few month old baby, a toddler, or a very little kid, maybe like a three-year-old. Between the ages of zero and three, I would take a pretty hard line when it comes to screens and try to limit it as much as possible. It's the easiest really with your first child because there's no bigger child in the home, you know, using screens with their baby sibling peering over their shoulder. But in some ways, it's also the hardest because you're hit with the newness of parenthood, which can be a shock to the system and to the marriage and to the household and to your job. And the screen is a very kind of seductive digital babysitter, right? So, here's what I would say. You're going to be faced with a lot of peer pressure and a lot of people surrounding you who normalize the idea that tiny little kids sit in their stroller and watch a device. Things around you are going to indicate to you that it's okay to sit them in a restaurant on the iPad. That it's okay that whenever they're having a tantrum, you just whip out the device and get them playing a game or watching a show. And I'm here to give you the unpleasant, you know, news. I don't like to bear bad news, but to say that it's not ideal. Is it okay once in a while?

2:59 Is it okay when you're in crisis mode, when you're in survival mode, when you need to be kind of, you know, saved? When you need a moment to yourself? Is it okay if your mental health is suffering? If your physical health is suffering, if you just can't manage, if your babysitter bowed out and you have a Zoom meeting, yeah, of course, it's not going to do any massive damage if once in a while your kid uses the screen. But at these very early ages, our children's brains are developing very rapidly in many ways faster. You know, they're taking these greater leaps than they will for the rest of their lives. The development from age 0 to one and to two is is so dramatic. The difference between a newborn and a 2-year-old is so extreme. They really need all of that time to develop their brains in the most optimal way. And we know from extensive research that the most optimal way is face tof face in real life development and relationships. It's best for young children not to use a screen at all.

3:58 It's really best for them to learn their vocabulary from real people, from reading books, from talking to them, from face to face facial and tonal and body language uh cues. They need to actually be in that kind of responsive environment. And even responsive AI screens are not going to replace what real people offer them. They need to be able to use their hands to tactilally explore different themes like building blocks and gravity when you push over that building block and maybe different textures and hot and cold and wet and dry and sensory exploration. They need to see other kids around them. In other words, they need an embodied in real life experience as much as possible.

4:40 Now, this isn't to demonize you or make you feel guilty if you do rely a bit on screen time every day, but it is to really encourage you to stay strong and to push back against that societal pressure or that societal permissiveness around screens for very young ages and say, "No, we don't need it." And I promise you, you don't. In fact, I've written a whole book and I offer a whole course about independent play which starts from the age of zero.

5:05 Zeroyear-old babies are already programmed to play independently and to explore the world through play. Okay. Play imaginatively, play sensorally with through messy play and tactile play and also to do other things through play like develop their body through movement play, right? To develop their core uh strength, their vestibular system, their balance, their sense of their body in space. You'll see this if you have a very tiny baby. They eventually, you know, within a few weeks, they're reaching for their toes. They're reaching to roll over. They're trying to learn their surroundings and gain their bearings. And that cannot happen through a screen. What's more is a screen will delay that development because it keeps them sedentarily kind of glued and stuck. And it's very likely to have kind of lasting effects that we don't want on their ability to focus, on their ability to read cues and facial expressions, on their ability to develop their physical skills and all of that stuff. So, I'm not here to fearmonger or make that, you know, into bigger, scarier thing than it really is. But I am here to really strengthen your resolve that you don't need it. You just don't need it because there's so many other things that children that age are happy to be doing.

6:13 You know, they're happy to be playing. Basically, kids are designed to play. That's all kids. In fact, that's not just human kids. That's also all mammal cubs. All mammals have a childhood. And the longer the childhood, the more intelligent the species. And that's because childhood is designed as a time when you play. And play is designed to prepare you for adult life. Play is where you explore all the things that you'll need to get good at in order to survive in your culture. That's why kids play at doing all the things that adults do in their culture, right? They'll play driving a car or they'll play cooking because they're mimicking what the adults do and therefore practicing what they'll need to learn in order to do well. Again, if they are in front of a screen, they are robbed of that opportunity to play. So, from the ages of 0 to three, I would think of a screen as maybe survival only, right? When you absolutely need it, when you're sick, when the babysitter cancelled, when your kid is sick, when you can't handle what's going on and when the alternative is you losing your mind, losing your call, getting really triggered, getting really angry, and you just need it for a moment. You need it because you got to get a handle on the house, or you need it because you're just going crazy.

7:24 That's fine. We all get there. We all, you know, go through survival mode periods. Maybe your partner's traveling or maybe you got really bad news or whatever it is that might be happening that kind of plunges us into kind of separate reality, right? A just getting through the day reality. And in those cases, still sparingly, but in those cases, you can use a screen for a small child. Can also use it socially here and there, like, oh, all the kids in the family are watching a movie and my 2-year-old is there. You know, obviously they're going to be drawn to the screen and they're going to watch. I don't have to avert their eyes and and remove them and make it impossible for them. It doesn't matter if grandma shows them a little video on her phone. It doesn't matter if their cousin tries to, you know, get them to play snake with them on their iPad. It doesn't matter here and there. The point is survival mode or sparingly, right? Just here and there as long as it's not the norm. What we don't want is for this to start to really take bites out of their time spent playing and developing in real life, right? We want it to be rare. Okay, rare that they use the screen for anything. Let's move to the second age group. Let's call it childhood from say 4 till about 9. Okay, so this is when kids are already going to be verbally expressing their desire to watch things like their friends are watching them. They're going to already start to show those signs of maybe addiction. I want one more episode. Can we just do five more minutes? Can we just finish this series? Right? This is the time when the social pressure, the peer pressure from the outside is going to be to give them screen time every day. That this is just what one does to relax. That they should maybe start their morning with screen time because it makes your morning flow easier when they're just sitting seditarily and not disturbing you. Or that if they're having a play date with someone, then it should be around a video game or around watching a show together. In fact, just recently someone reached out to a friend of mine and said, "Oh, I would love to get our boys together. How about your son comes over to watch a movie? And it was so striking that in today's day and age, that seems like a normal way to get children together, getting them to know each other, getting them to make friends with each other by sitting and passively consuming entertainment on a screen and actually not talking or playing together at all. And that is going to be the peer pressure. The peer pressure is going to be, "Oh, don't fight it. It's fine. It's not such a big deal. Just let them watch. It's okay. They're also in sports. They're also, you know, they know how to read. So, what do you want?

9:48 He did his homework, so just let him, you know, watch for the rest of the day. And the truth is that kids of the age between four and nine can be quite demanding. They can be very chatty. They can be quite chaotic, making a big mess around the house. They can want neverending playdates. Take me to this one's house. Bring over that friend. They can want a lot of extracurricular activities that really can cost a lot or can be very inconvenient. There is something very demanding about those afternoons spent with children at that age. They want to do stuff and that's because children at this age are primed to learn and grow and stretch themselves. They're primed to strive for ambition, for excellence, for drive, for social connection. The age of around seven plus is when kids really start to care about their peer group as much as if not more than their family. They want to go out. They want to meet friends.

10:38 They want friends to come over. It's not enough to just sit around and hang around at home. And so, what easier way to shush them and to, you know, a little bit anesthetize them and calm them down and pacify them than switching on the screen when they're playing with a video game. When they're watching a TV show, they aren't demanding things. They're not being entitled. They're not being rude. They're not talking back and being sassy. They're not fighting with their siblings. They're not making a mess in the kitchen. And so, they're much more convenient. But remember that this is a bit of a robotification effect. You're basically sitting your child down and plugging them in like a cyborg. And listen, I enjoy Netflix and chill as much as the next person. But here's what I want to say about this stage of life and pushing back against this peer pressure. Children at this age and stage have is to do. They've got stuff they need to do. They've got development to do. They've got social connection that they need to make. They need to develop their mastery, their sense of self, their fine motor skills, their academic sharpness. They need to sharpen every area of themselves. This is a time for rapid and meaningful growth. They need to learn how to make the muffins from scratch in the kitchen and clean up after themselves. How to host a friend and make sure that that friend gets a glass of water and a snack and is happy with the game and negotiates the rules and you include your little brother and you don't make a massive mess that you don't clean up. They need to learn how to sit down and read a book and do their homework and do all sorts of things.

12:07 They need to sleep well. They need to eat well. Children of this age are not just lumps that we can sit in front of a TV and keep them pacified and then it's easier. I mean, yes, it's easier, but then we're missing out on so many things that they actually need. So, what I would say about this stage is that screen time can be kind of like a reward for a hard day's work. If you put in a hard day's work, look, you helped out with chores, you did your homework, you sharpened your brain, you slept well at night, you've taken care of your surroundings, you've moved your body, you've gotten out in nature, you've been a contributor, right? If you've had like a meaningful, good, productive day, then sure, like relax for half an hour, relax for an hour, fine. But what we have to be really careful of in this age and stage is that screen time doesn't actually take over their childhood and doesn't take away from all these other very important things. We know that physically if they're just shoved into a sedentary role, if they are, you know, just watching a screen all day, it can harm their eyesight. It can harm their bones and their muscles and their weight and all sorts of things physically, right? But also emotionally, if they're not connecting with friends, which now is the time to make meaningful friendships and to master one's negotiation skills and compromising and conflict resolution. If they're not taking the time to actually develop themselves academically to push themselves, yeah, it's a little hard.

13:29 Yeah, it's a little boring, but I'm going to do the the math or the reading or the whatever it is that I'm working on. If they're not developing their life skills, like maybe learning cooking or knitting or whatever it is that they're into, then they aren't going to have that chance again. You don't come back to this chunk of childhood where you're not a baby, but you're not yet a tween or a teen. And so, the stakes are still pretty low. Things are still pretty fluid. I'm best friends with this one this day and then with that one the next day. I'm really good at math this year and then next year I struggle. you know, I get to go through different things between the age of four and nine that don't have such a massive consequence on the rest of my life. It's okay. I get another opportunity. Doesn't really matter if it happens in fourth grade or in third grade or in fifth grade, right?

14:14 I have a little bit of breathing room, but this is the time when I need to practice those skills and develop myself and become more of a whole person who can handle myself because I'm going into the tween years soon. Now, if I just spend that time in front of a screen, I'm not going to develop that. And I'll enter the tween years underdeveloped. And you've seen kids like this. I bet you've seen kids who just can't handle themselves, even though they they seem like overgrown toddlers, right? Like, have you ever met someone who's 11 or 12 who can't look you in the eye and talk to you politely? Who can't make an order at the restaurant in a nice way? who can't sit down and finish their homework or read a book or organize something or handle themselves, right? That just seem very immature for their age. Part of that might be in some cases that I've observed at least because they didn't practice it enough. They didn't get enough of a chance to rub up against social situations, to present themselves, to make themselves uh really someone who other people like to be around, who other people are fond of, right? Who other people uh take to when you're four, people are very very forgiving because you're still very little and cute. If you hit, if you don't know how to solve a problem, we're still like, "Okay, you just you just came out of the toddlerly years. You're basically still a baby. Like, we'll teach you." But if you're still behaving that way, disregulated, ungenerous, ungrateful, entitled, demanding, loud, rude, you know, sassy, lazy when you're 11 or 12. It's not cute anymore, and society will not afford you the same patience as they did when you were four.

15:55 Now you look overgrown, entitled, unpleasant, and no one wants to give you the chances, the mentorship, the opportunities that you desire, that that you know that you should have. And so you need to spend the years between the ages of four and nine really honing your character traits, your ability to wait, to be patient, to be grateful, to be generous, to solve a problem, to talk politely, to be a good host, all of those things. And if you're glued to a screen, you're not going to get the chances to practice that. So, how do I want you to push back against the screen time here is I want you to contain it.

16:29 There needs to be really clear rules about what you need to complete before screen time is unlocked. You haven't done your homework, you haven't slept properly, you haven't moved your body, you haven't called grandma, you haven't hung out with your friends, you haven't gotten outside, forget it. How could we possibly put on the TV if you haven't done all the things that this day needs you to do first? Right? That's where the role of screen time, I think, is for this age. It's like entertainment that is almost like a reward, right? You unlock it after doing all the other important things that you need to do.

16:59 And the reason I'm putting a fine line on this is because it's easy to miss it. It's easy to think they're just kids. It doesn't matter. There's no, you know, there's no big consequences at this time of their life. We just kind of have to get through these years with a lot of fun, right? We just have to make them as fun as possible, as low conflict as possible, you know? No, this is the time where you have to deal with the tantrums. You have to deal with the hitting. You have to deal with the rudeness. This is the time for tremendous parenting. Like the parenting is hyperact, not hyperactive, but hyperactive as in ultraactive during this time. You're actually in there in the weeds of their mindset, coaching them, shaping their character, bringing out the best parts of their temperament, helping them overcome cognitive biases, helping them to learn to refine themselves and to grow up so that when they exit their childhood into the tween years, they've got a character that is working for them, that is going to make them friends and help them influence people in the world. Right? This is the time for us parents to be very on top of it, very with them. And the afternoon, say they get back from school, that's the time for it, right? Dinner time, round the table as a family, bedtime, being connected, talking. the morning, maybe before they go to school or if you're homeschooling them all day. This is the time when you actually spend really having meaningful conversations, coaching, helping, modeling, solving in the weeds of building up their personality and their character into something very solid, strong, with a real moral compass, with real mental toughness. This is the time they need that. They can't squander it away on screen time. So, screen time is just kind of a reward at the end of a hard day's work. And good behavior. And I said that good behavior is almost like a throwaway line, but it's not a throwaway line at all. If you are thoughtless, if you are chaotic, if you are cruel, if you are rude throughout the day, don't expect to then get rewarded with just relaxing in front of a movie in the evening. No, this is the time when screens become a reward for good behavior that you don't get. It's a privilege, right? And you don't get it without the responsibility cuz privileges and responsibilities always come together. So you want a privilege then you have to behave properly. You have to do the productive things and behave in the prosocial ways in order to be able to unlock that reward at the end of the day. And if you think about that that's very similar to us as adults, okay? Us as adults. If we don't do our, you know, show up to our jobs, do our responsibilities, have accountability and responsibility all day, then it's kind of inappropriate for us to just, you know, veg out in front of the TV. We see that as lazy, as you know, being a bum, as wasting your day if you haven't done hard things first, right? If you haven't shown up and contributed first.

19:50 Okay. Then they graduate into the tween years. And the tween years is a little bit about those beginning seeds of differentiation where children want a little bit more autonomy, a little bit more trust. And it can be tantalizing because they can seem like little adults. They can articulate things very well. They're very persuasive. Some of them are like little lawyers and they can do so many things. They can run to the store and get you something. They can go to a friend's house independently. They're doing their homework by themselves. And they suddenly seem like they can handle a lot more. That is the peer pressure at this time. This is the time when people get their kids smartphones, when people kind of loosen or laxen or don't even think about parental controls, where kids maybe start getting their first computer in their bedroom. And this is the type of thing that is going to be the social norm. The social norm is going to be that kids at this age just have a phone in their pocket and wherever they go, they can use it. And I want to push back against that and say no, tween are still very much children. They cannot handle the seduction and temptation and vast world of the internet on their phone.

20:55 They can use technology. They can enjoy a movie or a TV show similar to a kid, you know, at the end of a hard day's work when you've earned it with good behavior and with productivity. Sure, no problem. But not as their default behavior. Not as their default way of getting information, of connecting with others, or of having fun or entertaining themselves. No, they need many other things in their life that are going to fill their life. I refer you to the last video in this series all about building a strong family culture and offering them other things like getting outdoors and sports and books and family and chores and friendship and connection.

21:34 They need other things rather than the screen to fill their time. But what's also tantalizing at this time is to think that they can maybe, you know, handle their own smartphone or now is the time to open them their own social media accounts. No, tween a massive transformation in their brain. Their hormones are changing very rapidly. They have a lot of emotional volatility and instability and a lot of insecurity socially that might be starting to build. And this would actually be the worst time to expose them to social media. In fact, it might be the worst time to expose them to a smartphone altogether. So, what I would say the guidelines for this age and stage is keep allowing maybe watching a movie as a family or watching a TV show uh to to unwind at some point or maybe playing some video games. But first of all, this is the time to dial in your parental controls. Right? When kids are very little, you have parental controls cuz they're really only watching kids stuff. I hope right like you know the kids area of Netflix or something like that right now it's a question of your own culture your own religion your own social norms how you know how on top of each thing they watch you want to be but don't loosen that as they become 9 10 11 12 but rather actually tighten it cuz this is the time when they start to get curious about content that you might not want them exposed to right about things that have more sexual charge more violent charge and that type of thing.

23:01 So, this is the time to make sure you've got firm parental controls on their devices. Uh that you're making sure that they're not exposed to social media so that you can protect their mental health and social skills and social connection. Especially true for girls. And I think this would be a great time to have a dumb phone because this is a time when you want your child to have more independence to go out by themselves to, you know, to walk home from school by themselves or whatever they might be doing. That's appropriate in most places for an 11 or 12year-old to take a bus etc. Certainly where I live, it's very normal for children to be doing that, but you do want to communicate with them. So, this is a great time for them to have a dumb phone and not to be uh on social media or have a smartphone in their pocket. So, we want to kind of negotiate that carefully with the twins as they enter into the teen years, say 13 to 16 and beyond, right? This is a time when I think many parents feel like, well, I'm done here. There's, you know, I can't control what he watches. I can't control if she has a device or not. she could probably work and pay for her own phone, you know, that kind of thing. And I think again, this is kind of a take back your kids message. I would say no. This is the time to really be in there with them, right? This is the apprenticeship time where they're kind of transitioning more into adulthood where by the end of their childhood, yeah, you're not going to have control over whether or not they have a smartphone and what they do on it. But this is the time to teach them etiquette, social norms, media literacy, safety online, which we'll go into more in another episode. But this is the time to have the parental controls to strongly discourage or even in in my case to forbid social media usage, right? to be careful about how much time they spend on things like YouTube and what type of thing they're watching on there and making sure they're not going down any radicalized rabbit holes or people aren't whispering, you know, terrible ideas in their head. Remember that ideas, as per Professor Gadsad, can be like pathogens. They can infect the mind. they can work their way in and they can make a teenager feel a sense of belonging and connection and inspiration to this amazing group that they find online which turns out to be, you know, predatory or uh just, you know, a terrible idea. And so, we've got to be really careful. This is the time where we reinforce the idea that there are no private screens in your bedroom. No screens outside of the family area. That you don't even take your phone into your bedroom. Certainly not into the bathroom. you know that you leave it in charging at night in a place where we can all see it. That you know that yes, your messages, your apps, your screen usage can be seen by your parents. And so you do need to be responsible and careful. You need to be anyway, but you're going to be even more so when you know that your parents can see these things. And so I would really push back against the social norm that you just give it up, you know, when they're teenagers that you, you know, a lot of parents think, I'll lose him or her. She won't want to be friends with me. She won't love me. She won't come back home to me. she won't listen to me. She'll rebel against me if I'm too strict with the rules. But I think the opposite is actually true. Teenagers need to feel that firm hug of the boundary of the parent who cares. Of the parent who is who is aware, who knows what's going on, who knows what they're doing on their phone, how long they're on it, what apps they have, what they're watching, you know, who they're connecting with online, who is on top of it. I think that actually feels a lot like love to a teenager. They might rile against it.

26:24 They might say, "Give me freedom and trust me and and and leave me alone." But the truth is that if you just completely leave a teenager alone, if you just completely, you know, have no rules, I don't know that they experience that as love rather than as neglect. They might feel that you don't care, that it just doesn't interest you, that they can do whatever they want online, whether it's good for their brain or bad for their brain, and uh you aren't going to do anything about it. And I think what actually feels like love is warmth but firmness and clarity and rules because that feels like, you know, good guard rails, good guides. Like, okay, my parents don't let me do that. I wish I could. I want the freedom. Ra, rebel, rebel, rebel. But I love that my parents care about me. And I also trust my parents because they're good guys. You know, they've built up good rapport with me over the years, and I know that they love me unconditionally. And so, I'm going to listen to them and follow their wisdom. Now, teens are going to push boundaries. They are going to sneak.

27:21 They are going to break the rules. In fact, it's not just teens. It might be twins. It might be kids who, you know, break rules sometimes and push back. And in the next episode, we're going to be exploring what to do about that. How do you respond? And I've been in this situation where your kid sneaks the iPad into their room or watches more than you said that they were allowed to or does things that they're not allowed to do.

27:44 That is going to happen. That's part of the course. And it's actually kind of healthy that kids test us sometimes. But the question is, how do we respond and how do we pass that test? And that is what I'm going to explore in the next episode. So, make sure you're subscribed and leave me your key takeaway below. I read every comment and I would love to hear from you if you're finding this series helpful. Which episode has been your most helpful one so far? What is your key takeaway from today? And what follow-up questions or push back or resistance do you have for me so that I can address it in a future episode?

28:12 Thank you so much for listening. I love having these in-depth, meaningful conversations around how we can create a family culture that we love, that we're proud of, and shape the future that we're excited about. Because I really do believe that raising our families is the most meaningful project of our lives. I'm here to help you do that. So, make sure that you're subscribed, and I'll see you in the next one. Keep on living that high fam life. Hi.