This subject comes up a lot. In fact, we just posted about it on the blog a couple of weeks ago! But it’s worth continuing the conversation about screen time and how it affects our children, particularly those preschool aged. Drs. Laurie Berdahl and Brian D. Johnson share their expertise on managing media for young kids. Their book, Warning Signs: How to Protect Your Kids from Being Victims or Perpetrators of Violence, publishes on August 1 and is available for pre-order on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Media use is inevitable in childhood, but research shows detriments of exposure, including aggression, anxiety, sexualization, and inattention. Parents can manage media to minimize harm and benefit children from birth to age 5 using these guidelines.
Infants don’t benefit from media. They require sensitive responses to needs and abundant nurturing touch for healthy emotional development. Learning through personal interactions and exploration of surroundings, technology use distracts their caretakers.
At age one, limited interactive video chat or co-viewing language-teaching video while asking children questions or commenting on content can benefit learning while passive watching or listening can inhibit learning. Face-to-face interactions, hearing live speech, and physical play still work much better for language and psychosocial development. Other screen media aren’t recommended, but putting children in front of a prescreened video for a few minutes so parents can complete tasks is fine, if the time is minimal.
Two-year-olds can learn language and problem solving from educational media if they spend more time with social and physical play and book reading. Entertainment media time should be very limited and parental co-viewing is essential to ensure appropriate content and to encourage interaction with educational content.
Starting at age three, entertainment media with cooperative, prosocial, and uplifting messages can be beneficial. Prescreen and avoid even G-rated and educational shows with violent, sexual, and frightening content. Children under age eight can’t tell fantasy from reality well, easily learning bad behaviors or developing prolonged fears. They find scary fantasy and transformation figures, personal violence, suffering, accidents, and fires very frightening. Saying, “That’s just pretend” can actually increase fear. Covering eyes and ears doesn’t work either—what they imagine can be just as damaging. So turn off harmful content, saying, “This isn’t good for us.”
If violent characters are shown, express disapproval (“It’s bad to hurt people”) and sympathy for victims (“I feel bad for him”) and encourage your kids to also by talking to the TV. For frightening content, say you’re not worried and will keep them safe. Discuss how TV teaches good and bad things: how to act, express emotions, and solve problems. Praise them when they make good media choices.
News viewing makes young children very anxious, so it isn’t advised. If kids bring up troubling world events, keep discussions brief and talk about helpful, kind reactions of others, but don’t discuss your own fears.
To minimize media harm, also do the following:
- Designate media-free times (meals, bedtimes) and zones (kitchen, car, yard), including phones.
- Turn off TV when no one is actively watching and mute commercials.
- Don’t allow screens in children’s bedrooms.
- Only allow prescreened websites with very strong parental controls.
- Nonviolent video games can be fun family activities that develop hand-eye coordination. Games that reward players for killing or hurting even cartoonish characters aren’t recommended.
- Children’s media use correlates with parental use, so try to limit yours.
Read more in WARNING SIGNS: How to Protect Your Kids From Becoming Victims or Perpetrators of Violence and Aggression.
Dr. Brian Johnson grew up in rural South Dakota and received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Iowa. He is a licensed child and adolescent psychologist, parenting expert, and full professor at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) where he has served as the training director of the doctoral program. Counseling youth and their families for over twenty years, he became Director of the Psychological Services Clinic in 2015 and recently brought a community mentorship program for at-risk youth, including those on probation, to UNC in collaboration with the Weld County District Attorney’s office. This is his second book with wife Dr. Laurie Berdahl; their first award-winning title was 7 Skills for Parenting Success.
Dr. Laurie Berdahl obtained her MD from the University of Iowa and did her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center after which she entered private practice. Sharing her husband’s interest in parenting education, she has published articles in the journals Medical Economics and Parenting: Science and Practice. She and Dr. Johnson are proud parents of their two adult children. In 2014, Dr. Berdahl retired from medical practice after almost twenty years due to developing a permanently disabling condition. She continues to write and speak on issues related to parenting and adolescent wellness.