The Internet, TV, and video games can be educational and fun, but a study from the National Institutes of Health showed that children’s screen habits develop early on; on average, children’s average daily screen time nearly tripled from 53 minutes to greater than 150 minutes between age 12 months and 3 years. This KidsHealth article makes some recommendations to help kids develop safe and healthy screen habits based on guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Here are some highlights:
- Watch the programs and videos that your children will watch to make sure that the content is appropriate for them. There are ratings and screening tools that can help you, such as TV Parental Guidelines, V-chips, and video game and app ratings published by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
- Learn about and discuss Internet safety with your children.
- Set up profiles for your children on every device to limit the content they can access.