Limiting Screentime

It’s a challenge to keep kids away from television and computers and tablets and smartphones, especially in the winter when they are indoors much of the time, and when they’re out of school.  And it is a challenge to make sure they get the most out of the time they do spend on media.  The Chicago Sun-Times has some great advice from the wonderful Nicole Dreiske, founder of the Chicago-based International Children’s Media Center, which offers workshops and festivals for teachers, parents and children that promote constructive screen engagement.

“It doesn’t matter how many opportunities kids have to interface with screens, parents are still the most important people in their lives, and the holidays are a time for family.”

Building a positive relationship between parents and children around screen time is an achievable goal, Dreiske contends, one that could result in less tension with children over media and gaming choices and time limits.

A mistake parents make, she said, is that they put themselves solely in the position of the “media warden, trying to monitor all the media coming into the home and that’s never going to work,” Dreiske says.

A more constructive approach is to give children an opportunity to talk about what they’re watching.

I’m honored that this website was one of the resources she recommended for parents.  Many thanks!