Managing Screen Time & Digital Wellness

Help your child build a healthy relationship with screens by focusing on balance, self-awareness, and real-life connection. Explore practical strategies to guide your family’s digital habits—without relying on strict time limits.

Below, you’ll find resources on:

Healthy Habits

How Much Screen Time?

There isn’t a single “safe number” that applies to every child. Research and experts like the American Academy of Pediatrics now emphasize quality and timing over strict limits, which are often hard to count. The key question is whether screen use supports your child’s growth—or crowds out sleep, schoolwork, physical activity, or relationships.

  • Use with intention. Screens can support your family’s rhythm—for example, putting on an educational show while you cook dinner.

  • Protect connection times. Keep certain moments screen-free—meals, bedtime routines, or time with family and friends —so you can talk, play, or relax together.

  • Teach self-regulation. For younger kids, avoid using screens as the main way to calm them down. Relying on devices to soothe frustration can prevent them from learning important self-soothing skills.

  • Benchmarks still help. Many parents may receive suggestions from pediatricians or other experts about keeping entertainment screen time (TV, YouTube, gaming, social media) under about 2 hours/day for school-aged kids. Schoolwork and educational use generally don’t count toward this total. If your child is spending significantly more hours than this on a daily basis, reflect on whether it’s getting in the way of sleep, schoolwork, activity, or connections. The right number will flex with your child’s needs and your family’s schedule—a rainy Saturday or sick day may include more, while a busy school day or an active weekend outdoors may mean less.

Insight

Two hours of meaningful family time watching a movie is very different from just 30 minutes of harmful or stressful content. What matters most is the quality and timing of screen use, not just the number of minutes. (AAP)

Balancing Online and Offline Activities

Perfect balance isn’t the goal every day—but helping your child build a rich, well-rounded life is.

Encourage self-awareness

Ask your child:

  • How do you feel after spending time on this app?

  • Is this helping you feel connected, relaxed, creative—or drained, angry, or left out?

Support offline interests

  • Provide supplies or opportunities for non-digital hobbies

  • Connect online passions to real-world activities (e.g., coding, art, photography)

  • Prioritize unstructured, tech-free play time

Blend digital and physical life

  • Use tech for real-world enrichment (bird ID apps, recipes, creative tools)

  • Encourage your child to share online discoveries with friends or family

  • Use apps to support real-life connections and learning

Create smooth transitions

  • Add buffer time between screen time and homework, meals, or bedtime

  • Suggest physical activities after fast-paced digital ones. These can be calming exercises or physical exercises such as running, to release pent up energy.

Use short routines like a stretch break or family walk to reset

Creating Healthy Routines

Start with rhythms, not rules

Instead of imposing rigid time limits, observe when screen time naturally fits your day—and when it causes stress. Build boundaries around natural transitions, like after school or before bed.

Involve your child in the process

Kids are more likely to respect rules they help create. Talk about why screens before bed disrupt sleep, or how constant notifications can make homework harder to finish.

Differentiate screen types

Not all screen time is equal:

  • Schoolwork and learning apps are different from gaming

  • FaceTiming a grandparent is not the same as scrolling TikTok

  • Help your child recognize and plan around these differences

Build in flexibility

Rigid rules often backfire. Allow more freedom on family movie nights or when your child is sick. The goal is to raise a child who can self-regulate, not just follow rules.

Additionally, rules that work for one of your children may not work for another. Some kids struggle with different aspects or have greater trouble with self regulation You may need to adjust your family’s rules to align with your child who struggles the most with self regulation

Check in regularly

Talk as a family about what’s working and what isn’t. Are routines helping everyone feel more balanced? Would small adjustments make them easier to follow?

Insight

A longitudinal prospective study of adolescents without ADHD symptoms at the beginning of the study found that, over a two-year follow-up, high-frequency use of digital media, with social media as one of the most common activities, was associated with a modest yet statistically significant increased odds of developing ADHD symptoms (OR 1.10; 95% CI, 1.05-1.15). (Surgeon General, 2023)

Guidance for Parents

Recognizing Signs of Problematic Use

Not all heavy screen use is a problem—but some patterns are worth watching. Once you learn to monitor your children for these signs, teach them to notice it in themselves.

Physical and emotional signs

  • Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep

  • Headaches, eye strain, or fatigue

  • Irritability or anxiety after being online

  • Strong emotional reactions when devices are taken away

Social or behavioral changes

  • Avoiding in-person activities or friendships

  • Struggling to complete schoolwork or chores

  • Hiding devices or lying about screen time

Trouble focusing on tasks without a screen involved

When to seek support

If screen habits are affecting your child’s mood, schoolwork, or relationships—and changes at home aren’t helping—consider talking to:

  • A pediatrician

  • A school counselor

  • A therapist with experience in technology-related issues

Using Screen Time Tools Effectively

  • Use parental controls and timers as temporary support—not permanent fixes

  • Share screen time reports and talk about them together

  • Consider apps that allow the whole family to track and reflect on usage

  • Model the behavior you want to see by reflecting on your own screen habits

Insight

Limits on the use of social media have resulted in mental health benefits for young adults and adults. A small, randomized controlled trial in college-aged youth found that limiting social media use to 30 minutes daily over three weeks led to significant improvements in depression severity. This effect was particularly large for those with high baseline levels of depression who saw an improvement in depression scores by more than 35%. (Surgeon General, 2023)

Tech-Free Zones and Family Time

Set up tech-free spaces

Identify places where screens are off-limits—bedrooms, the dinner table, or wherever your family gathers most.

Make these spaces inviting: Keep them stocked with books, puzzles, games, or creative supplies.

Model healthy behavior

  • Put your own phone away during family time

  • Create a family charging station for devices

  • Acknowledge that managing screen habits is a challenge for adults too

Protect family time

Plan regular activities that don’t involve screens:

  • Mealtime conversations

  • Walks, hikes, or trips to the park

  • Cooking, music, games, or shared projects

  • Consider listening to music together or chatting with your children in the car as opposed to letting them use their devices

Let different family members choose tech-free activities to keep things engaging and fair.

Insight

 Nearly half of teens (46%) say their parent is at least sometimes distracted by their phone when they’re trying to talk to them. (Pew Research Center, 2024)

It’s Not Too Late

Feeling like your family's screen habits have gotten out of hand? You're not alone. Many parents reach a point where they realize things need to change—maybe after discovering their child has been staying up scrolling, or noticing increased meltdowns when devices get put away. Here's the good news: Families successfully reset their digital wellness every day, no matter how far off track they feel.

The Reset Mindset:

  • Every day is a fresh start—yesterday's screen time battles don't define today's possibilities.

  • Your child wants balance too, even if they can't articulate it yet.

  • Small, consistent changes create bigger shifts than dramatic overhauls.

Signs You're on the Right Track:

Your child might not thank you immediately, but you'll start noticing better sleep, more creativity during downtime, easier transitions between activities, and family conversations that don't revolve around screen time negotiations.

Where to Begin When You Feel Behind:

    • Spend a week simply noticing patterns without making changes.

    • Notice when screens help your family and when they create stress.

    • Ask yourself: What would "better" actually look like for us?

    • Maybe it's charging phones in the kitchen overnight.

    • Or having everyone (including parents) put devices away during dinner.

    • Focus on consistency with one small change rather than making sudden and drastic changes to your family’s tech agreement

    • "I've been thinking about our family's screen time. What's your take?"

    • Listen without immediately problem-solving or lecturing.

    • You might discover they've been wanting changes too.

    • You can't control what happened at friends' houses or what your child saw online yesterday.

    • You can influence what happens in your home, starting now.

    • Model the digital behavior you want to see—kids notice more than they let on.

    • Change is hard for everyone, including kids who've grown comfortable with current routines.

    • Acknowledge that new habits will feel weird at first.

    • Remind yourself that pushback often means the change is working.

Insight

A study by Common Sense Media found that 69% of parents and 78% of teens check their devices within an hour of waking up. When families work together to delay that first screen check—even by just 30 minutes—both parents and teens report feeling more intentional about their day and less reactive to digital demands.

Helpful Tools

Screen Time Readiness Checklist

Use this list to help assess whether your child is developing healthy digital habits.

Daily Habits

  • Follows family screen time routines

  • Takes breaks from screens without conflict

  • Balances digital and in-person activities

  • Sleeps well and keeps devices out of the bedroom

Self-Regulation

  • Can stop screen time without meltdowns or arguments

  • Checks in on how apps or games make them feel

  • Uses screen time intentionally, not out of boredom or habit

Communication and Awareness

  • Can explain why some screen time rules exist

  • Willing to talk about what they’re doing online

  • Understands the difference between school, social, and entertainment screen use

Problem-Solving

  • Knows what to do if something online is upsetting, and knows they can come to you in these situations

  • Comfortable taking tech breaks when needed

  • Can recognize when screen time is getting in the way of other priorities

Printable Checklist

Download the PDF version below to print it out and review with your family!