Screen Time best practices

The best family memories are made day by day, during shared moments: a meal, a car journey…

This time spent together is important for everyone’s development, learning and health.

Turning off your phone or television allows you to be fully present to enjoy the company of your loved ones and these moments.

You can create a ‘suggestions box’ in which you note down different activities on pieces of paper.

Suggest, for example, baking a cake, painting, playing sport, reading or playing cards. Picking an activity at random can be motivating for children.

And by scheduling this screen-free time every day at the same time, it will be easier to stick to it

One study reports that adults who are fixated on their mobile phones are five times more likely to ignore their children’s demands (Lemish, Elias & Floegel, 2020). Among other things, this has an impact on the child’s social and emotional development.

Parler des écrans permet de mieux comprendre comment chacun les utilise et ce qu’ils représentent dans le quotidien. Ces échanges aident les enfants et les adolescents à exprimer leurs envies, leurs questions ou leurs inquiétudes, et les parents à mieux percevoir leurs pratiques réelles. Prendre un temps dédié, calme et régulier, permet d’aborder le sujet sans tension ni reproche. La discussion devient alors un moment d’écoute et de partage, qui favorise la confiance et évite que les écrans ne deviennent un sujet de conflit.

Turn screens into a topic for conversation, not conflict, by sharing your discoveries as a family—whether it’s an interesting article, a new app, a unique game, or a funny video. These moments create great opportunities to exchange ideas and broaden everyone’s digital horizons.

The more active you are in creating an idea or a rule, the more likely you are to follow its guidelines (in what’s known as the ‘Ikea effect’ Norton et al., 2011). Rules set by the family, with the children, are therefore more likely to be followed.

Regularly reviewing them together to make sure they are still suitable will also keep the whole family involved.

If someone is talking to us, we listen and get off the screen. If we can’t leave the screen, we’ll explain why.

Being polite and respecting your loved ones should remain a priority, even when using a screen.

This rule applies to both parents and children!

Parents: to prevent frustration and conflict, you should let your children save their progress when they’re playing a game, or let them say goodbye to each other online before quitting.

Children: you need to listen to your parents when they ask for something.

Technoference occurs when screens interrupt or disrupt interactions between people. These interruptions can reduce the quality of attention paid to others, particularly between parents and children.

Children need their parents to look at them, listen to them, and be available to them in order to feel safe, understood, and to grow up well. Regular, attentive interactions promote emotional development, language skills, and confidence. Reducing screen-related distractions during shared moments helps preserve these essential exchanges.

Each room has its own purpose—that’s why we sleep in the bedroom, cook in the kitchen, etc. This is especially important in the bedroom, as screens can disrupt sleep, even when they’re not in use.

Put stickers or signs on the doors of ‘screen-free zones’ to remind everyone that they should not bring their screens into this area.

If someone forgets the rule and brings their screen anyway, leave a basket where they can put it.

The forming of a new habit is strongly linked to the environment in which we find ourselves (Lally & Gardner, 2011). By changing the environment (e.g. removing screens from certain rooms in the house), we make it easier to adopt new behaviours (e.g. replacing screen use with reading).

Having an area in the house reserved for screen use can reduce the temptation to use them in general.

It’s also a good way to be aware of how much time everyone spends on their screens.

Create a space dedicated to electronic devices: a ‘screen box’ or an extension lead in the corner of a room.

This space will allow you to charge your devices when you leave the room.

A well-documented psychological effect is that we always want what we can’t have. A recent study (Binder, Naderer & Matthes, 2020) shows, for example, that an advert for sweets on television makes children who are not allowed to eat them want to eat them more than those who have them at home. That’s why, instead of banning screens from every room in the house, it’s better to allow them to be used in an area that has been agreed upon together. This prevents frustration.

When you spend too much time on screens, you may become isolated and miss out on other activities and people.

At school, a screen can be a distraction from learning and therefore a problem.

Why not make the most of the journey to school or the break to do other activities, such as chatting, listening to music or playing a game with friends?

If you need a mobile phone for emergencies, try leaving it in a sealed bag.

Having specific days and times when we’re allowed to use screens in the home makes it easier to remember. That way you don’t need to negotiate for extra screen time every day.

These time slots can be marked on a visible schedule or calendar—on the fridge, in the hallway, or anywhere the whole family can see.You can even create the calendar together!

Younger kids can use magnets or stickers to mark screen time, and a color code can help differentiate schedules for each child.

If you decide on a specific playing time, you can use a stopwatch or set the console or tablet to inform the player of the time remaining.

Using a screen before bed can interfere with sleep.

Blue light emitted by screens keeps you awake and delays sleep.

Although you might think that screens help us sleep, they actually reduce its length and quality. This has a negative effect on our mood and concentration the next day.

Establishing a screen-free bedtime routine helps children (and parents!) to avoid using screens before going to bed.

They can be replaced by books, games, music or chatting.

Learning meditation or relaxation techniques also calms the body and mind.

Screen use, particularly before bed and during the night, is associated with poor sleep quality (Carter et al., 2016; Garrison et al., 2011).

• There are three main ways in which screens disrupt sleep:*Use of time (delaying or interrupting sleep time).

  *Mental stimulation that makes it difficult to fall asleep.

• * Blue light emission, which suppresses melatonin production (2x more than normal light), alters the circadian rhythm (2x more than normal light), and prevents body temperature from falling during the night.

Sometimes, you have to take care of chores before you can have fun—like doing your homework or tidying your room.

But it’s up to parents to decide what comes before screens.

And knowing that a nice activity comes after a less enjoyable task can also be a good motivator for children.

Associating screens with a ‘reward’ for a task completed can help motivate children. And it works for parents too!

Studies have shown, for example, that watching your favourite series while doing sport can encourage you to do it more often.

Using screens in the morning can have a huge impact on children’s attention, concentration and tiredness during the day.

Avoiding screens before school puts children in a better mood to study.

If you can, eat breakfast together whether in the kitchen or in a screen-free area.

Why not use this time before school to talk about the day ahead, listen to music or wake up your body with some stretching or a bit of sport?

Numerous studies show that exposure to screens in the morning is linked to the development of language disorders in children (Collet et al., 2019). This could be due to a lack of parent-child interaction in the morning, rather than the screens themselves, explains Professor Grégoire Borst. What is certain, however, is that children must have their concentration tank filled before starting a day of learning!

Screen time is often a point of contention. If you decide together beforehand how much time is allowed, there is less room for tension and conflict. If children are already aware of the rules, it will be less frustrating and easier to accept when their time is up.

It’s also a good way to give them a sense of responsibility.

One trick is to create ‘screen time’ credits (e.g. 15 or 30 minute cards), and hand them out to your children. It’s then up to them to make the best use of their screen time.

Agree on the rule in advance and have your child paraphrase it to make sure everyone is on the same page.

For series and cartoons, you can talk in terms of the number of episodes rather than minutes.

Once you have set the time limit as a family, you can also use parental control tools to block the connection when screen time has been exceeded.

Why not agree on a screen-free day for the whole family?

This little weekly ‘digital detox’ is the perfect day to organise family activities and outings. It’s also a great time to ask questions and talk about what you like to do away from screens.

By putting the screen-free day in a calendar that everyone can see, family members can put forward their own ideas for activities.

Before the day, be sure to put away any tablets, games consoles or other devices that won’t be used.

Seeing them will make you want to use them. After all, out of sight, out of mind!

A screen-free day helps combat screen overuse and its negative effects by encouraging physical exercise and social interaction.

Checking social media on your smartphone while playing games or watching your favorite show is very common. But when we overload our brain with too many tasks at once, it gets exhausted!

It becomes harder to focus and fully enjoy an activity when you're constantly distracted.

Do activities individually so that children can fully immerse themselves!

And don’t forget that children tend to copy your actions. They replicate what they’ve seen from adults… So, set the example!

It’s important to concentrate if you want to get the most out of an activity. A recent study shows that children are even more distracted than adults when they use several screens at the same time (Beuckels et al., 2021).

Sometimes, we leave the TV on all day. But some of the content may not be suitable for all the family, the visuals are distracting and the constant noise is tiring…

Homework requires attention and concentration. Using screens in the same room can disturb children and their learning.

And there’s no point in keeping the TV on if no one is watching it.

It’s important for both sides to communicate on the topic to avoid misunderstandings and frustration.

Be sure to turn off the television when no-one is watching it and put away the remote.

Teenagers often spend a lot of time on screens, whether out of interest or boredom—social networks, online games, videos, TV series, etc. Sometimes, they are very passive and don’t fully engage their potential.

Yet digital technology allows them to learn, create and do all kinds of things they probably didn’t even know existed.

Need inspiration?

Challenge them to try at least one creative activity each month—like designing a new avatar, making a video montage, composing music, creating a photo album, or even trying out a fun recipe found online!

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a form of anxiety that arises when we feel that others are enjoying moments without us (Torres Serrano, 2020; Gupta and Sharma, 2021). This pushes us to stay connected all the time so we don't miss anything and don't feel left out, but at the same time, it creates social anxiety because we always want to be connected to what others are doing (Przybylski et al., 2013).