3 ways to help your kids manage their screen time

• Who is this post for? Parents
• What does it discuss? Helping children to be mindful of their screen time
• How does it benefit you? Focus and peace of mind

Last week we asked you whether you felt your children’s screen time should be limited. It’s a subject that raises passionate opinions on both sides of the fence.

This week we simply want to point you in the direction of a thoughtful piece about helping your kids to think about the amount of time they spend in front of screens and the purpose of doing so. Read the piece from Anna Almendrala Healthy Living Senior Editor, Huffington Post, here.

 

Should we tame our kids’ screen time?

• Who is this post for? Parents of children
• What does it discuss? The merits or purpose of limiting screen time
• How does it benefit you? Possibly better grades for your kids

I remember when my parents used to moan at me for spending too much time in front of that “bloody computer” and not enough time outside. And that computer was a ZX Spectrum so frankly I was spending half my time actually waiting for games to load on a tape recorder 😉

But was that accusation fair and does the amount of time your kids spend in front of screens, be they PC’s tablets or smartphones, have any kind of negative effect on their education? Several recent studies, including those from the University of Cambridge and the National Children’s Bureau Northern Ireland, have claimed a negative effect on GCSE results to be correlated with increasing screen time.

One can probably argue that the nature of the screen time is probably the limiting factor. Research for study is different from playing the latest ‘shoot-em-up’, albeit there are many that vociferously claim gaming promotes its own set of skills (almost certainly true).

At the end of the day, as Mark Twain said, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Stats and reports can probably make a case for anything if the question is framed in a certain way. Regardless, this latest article on BBC News makes an interesting, balanced case and suggests methods and tools for parents who wish to take a proactive stand on screen time.

We’d love to hear from you if you have your own views on whether or how to limit your kids’ screen time.

How do we stop bright screens disrupting our sleep?

• Who is this post for? Everyone
• What does it discuss? How to ensure bright screens don’t disrupt your sleep
• How do you benefit? Increased alertness; Increased productivity; Decreased tiredness; Decreased stress

OK, hands up who climbs into bed and starts looking at stuff on their phone or tablet? Even worse, hands up who does this with the lights off because their partner is asleep. Right now, I’ve got both hands AND feet in the air 😦

What makes this worse is that I KNOW this is bad for me. I know all the scientific evidence points to the fact that this reduces the quality of my sleep as a team from Harvard Medical School told us just before Christmas last year.

But what’s the solution? Paul Gringas, Professor of children’s sleep medicine and neurodisability at Evelina London has now laid down a challenge to manufacturers of smartphones, tablets, and e-readers saying that they should have an automatic ‘bedtime mode’ to help them stop disrupting people’s sleep

He says that the blue-green light emissions from such devices can stop people falling asleep by up to an hour, which is pretty significant for a long-distance commuter like me!

Software (free software at that) does currently exist to automatically reduce such light emissions from your laptop or desktop in line with the time of sunrise and sunset in your location. It’s called f.lux and you can download it here (I use it myself, so can guarantee it’s an easy process). The software is not yet currently available for smartphones or tablets as the devices would need to be ‘jailbroken’ to install it and you really don’t want to go there. But at the very least, if you like to work late, this is a good solution for at least part of your ‘bright screen’ problem.

Now we just have to hope our voices can be heard to encourage Apple, Samsung, Motorola etc. to address the wider problem with our mobile devices.