Season Finale: Screen Time for "little kids" (age 0-8)

Shownotes

Get your free handout on making TV watching more positive- with all the tips I couldn't fit in the episode 

AAP Screen Guidelines 

National Library of Medicine- Meta Analysis

Preventative Medicine reports on Screen Time and Mood Disorders 

This is my last regular episode of the season.  If you want to keep up with all things evidence based crunch over the summer, consider sponsoring me on Patreon. 

The music you here at the start of this and every episode was created by the "Wonderful" Obediya Jones-Darrell. You can check out his work here.

Transcript

0:28

This episode is all about screen time. I will note this is our last episode of the season. I am taking a summer break. That said, I will have some bonus episodes for my Paton subscribers. So if you want to keep up with All things science and crunchy parenting this summer head over to patreon.com, evidence-based crunch to learn more and sign up. We're going to be talking about one topic. I get requests for a great deal. Screen time, that glowing elephant in the room. I thought of a couple different ways to go at this episode and where I landed was this episode is going to specifically be about screen time for the six and under, or eight and under recommendations are a little different. But let's call it the aid and under crowd. and it's, it focuses on television. Because of that, we're going to do a second episode next season that is looking at screen time for older children, as well as more things around handheld devices, iPads, and video games. I will say that screen time is one of those issues that people often have very strong opinions about, but when you actually dig into it, the evidence is a little bit more mushy or there's more gray areas than maybe people's beliefs seem to be. There was a lot here. So what I've done, like I said, I've already broke this up into two separate episodes, but I also had a lot of tips and it was becoming a little too much of an advice podcast, which isn't really what this is. So what I've decided to do for this episode is I've created a free worksheet. Specifically on how to make screen time. More beneficial, get more of the pros and less of the cons. And I'm going to have a link to that in my show note as well as it'll be on all my social media and the blog, so you'll be able to get that and download that for free. And that will just have some tips to make screen time a bit more effective, a little bit more beneficial. It will have a list of some of the shows that we enjoy in my house as well as, Shows that I see as most positive, some with more evidence and some just based on my own knowledge and experience in these things. As always, I'll go into my personal experience. Before I had kids, I was. Definitely one of those people that was like, my children are not going to watch tv. They're not going to have screens we're they're gonna be the children you see sitting at the airport, sitting on a train, happily reading their books and coloring. I know the best parents are always the people without kids. So that I was very adamant about and I was pretty diligent with my firstborn, my son before the age of two, which was like no screens before two was the general recommendation. I remember I left him with my parents when he was about six months and they sent me a picture of him and the BBC was out in the background and I was like, he's not supposed to see tv. So I was, I was pretty adamant about that. I think probably when he was a little younger and he was sick, I put on YouTube a few times, but till about 20, 22 months, I was definitely like, my children are not gonna have screens before age too. And I can say that has definitely not been the case with my second born. In a big part of that is because when she was born, I had a four and a half year old and one way to occupying a four and a half year old so that they will be quiet when you need to do things with your newborn is to put on the tv and we're gonna talk more about using TV as a tool later on. But she definitely got exposed to a fair bit of tv. I've also learned a lot more about screen time in the. Interceding time. I took a absolutely amazing class as part of my psychology training. That was all about the psychology of children's television. I tried following that before that. After that, I really tried to, like everything else, realized that, you know, how much of this was coming from things I had read online versus actual research. So I really started digging in a little bit more to the research. When I was updating for this podcast. I've learned that the. American Associations of Pediatrics or the AAP is now saying that now 18 months and up is when kids can safely be exposed to a short amount of screen time under 18 months. They really recommend no screen time outside of things that are communicating with someone else like FaceTime, zoom to talk to grandparents or whoever else. But they say now from 18 months and up screen time should be limited to educational programs with caregivers. So yeah, that my now 20 month old definitely has had her fair bit of educational programs. We're gonna talk about that with caregivers for sure. That's really important. So what are the official recommendations? Most people, whether or not they're in the us, the really standard recommendations seem to be these AAP recommendations. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But like I said, I'm just gonna run through them and then I'll actually talk about what these actually mean and why they exist. Until 18 months, screen time should be limited to video chatting with an adult between 18 and 24 months. Screen time should be limited to watching educational programs with a caregiver. And then they say for ages two to five, limit non-educational screen time to about one hour per weekday and three hours on the weekends, which was actually more than I had expected. And then they said for ages six and older, encourage healthy habits and limit activities that includes screens and other bodies. Sort of have this go up to age eight. So I'm sort of thinking of this through six and eight. They also encourage to sc turn off all screens during family meals and outings. Learn about and use parental controls. Avoid using screens as pacifiers, babysitters, or to stop tantrums. We'll talk about that in a moment. And turn off screens and remove them from bedrooms 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime. So some of these things have to do more with things that can move around and less about television because it's 2023, we're going to be thinking about screens as anything with a screen. So these are all really lovely goals. one of my favorite memes, there were so many memes during lockdown in 2020, but I still remember this one that was like, I know what health recommendation I'm not going to be following. And that's the AAP recommendation on screen time. whenever I think of these recommendations, I always think of that like one hour when I'm locked in a house with my child. Good luck. Um, so these are these recommendations, but what are the actual concerns about screen time? Why do we have all these recommendations? We have sort of been conditioned to think about screen time as a bad thing, but why? So I went back to these recommendations again, and these were the reasons. That they cited for why someone would want to reduce screen time. And then I'm gonna just read it as a list and then we'll sort of go through why someone, what you can do about these and some of the research and some of the more crunchy side. Through some of these. So they cite sleep problems, lower grades in schools, reading fewer books, less time with family and friends, not enough. Outdoor or physical activity, weight problems, mood problems, poor self-image and body image issues, fear of missing out, fomo, less time learning, other ways to relax and have fun. I'm gonna just break down the recommendations and the concerns together. I mentioned that until 18 months of age, they really recommend limiting screen time to video chatting. I believe this recommendation came during the lockdown, but the reality is our children are going to grow up with screens to communicate with. So the idea of. you can't talk to grandma because it's on a screen to me always seemed kind of crazy. That said, much younger than 18 months. Most children don't find screens that engaging. That's been my experience, definitely with the second child that sort of sees screens all the time, really, before that age, you know, maybe she'd respond to a song, but it wasn't really going to keep her interest more than a minute or two. Between 18 and 24 months of age, screen time should be limited to watching educational program with a caregiver. So I liked that. I thought that was a great update because it made me feel really good. Like I said, while I'm recording this, I have a 20 month old. She watches enough Sesame Street that she knows Elmo by name. We had to just buy, we had one pair of Elmo pajamas. Now we have all sorts of Elmo clothing because every day she wants to wear an Elmo shirt. So knowing that there was at least some medical body that was saying that maybe this wasn't going to ruin her for life. Felt really good and writing this and thinking about this made me think that even with all the knowledge I had and sort of this I, the experience I had with knowing how to navigate screen time safely, there was still this guilt that was coming in the back of my head of Y am I letting her watch TV instead of doing X, Y, and Z. So I just wanna call that out. That I think we, we are still conditioned to sort of have this idea that the quote unquote best parents aren't letting their children have any TV is, is pretty strong. Will say between 18 and 24 months trying to limit it to educational programming and there's a lot of educational programming. there's gonna be a whole list in that handout. That you can get from me of some things that are really evidence based. Sesame Street is always gonna be the gold star, and you can find that on YouTube and it exists in lots of different language, but there is so much evidence about how beneficial Sesame Street is and Sesame Street has so much research put into it. So I will say in general, when I am watching Sesame Street with my child, It is watching,, it together, but I won't lie and say that I don't ever fall asleep or get up to cook or straighten things up because she's engaged. I'll talk a little bit more and it'll be a lot more in the handout of how you, why the engagement is so important. For children two to five, they recommend limiting non-educational screen time to one hour per weekday and three hours on the weekends. So what does it mean to be educational? What is an educational TV show? I think especially when we're talking about little kids, it's really easy, but there's actually a lot we can think about. So again, this is going to be more broken down in that handout cuz I don't want this to go on forever. But when we're talking about educational TV shows, there's often. A hard lesson and a soft lesson, especially when it comes to little kids, there's often a specific lesson that is, you know, we're gonna count in five, or we're learning all about colors. And then there's often a softer lesson within that. That's, you know, here we are learning about sharing or going to school. And sometimes the soft lesson is the main lesson. There's lots of shows that are really focused on emotional development If you've ever watched Daniel Tiger, that's another really great one that's going to be on my list. but I think that especially as kids get older, a lot of things can be considered educational. I remember in this course that I mentioned. She noted PAW Patrol, which I think is a bane of many parents' existence, is educational in some ways. Children are learning teamwork. Teamwork is actually really important, especially for children that were in the lockdown or maybe had some key developmental time during the lockdown. Being able to see some of these skills of. In this case, dogs, they love working together is actually really important. And for that two to five age, seeing these skills and then having an opportunity to practice them, which is also really important, and some of these other things are screens are happening at a specific time. So that's where a lot of those other recommendations are. So to break down what some of these concerns were, I wanted to know where the AAP was getting these. Concerns from, so I dug a little bit more into some of the research. They mentioned sleep problems. That's the first thing on the list. I think probably at this point, again, in 2023, we all sort of know how bad screens are, especially late at night in your room, falling asleep with screens. Most screens have blue light, so we're staring at that which blue light actually suppresses melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone that's signaling your body need to sleep. So this recommendation really has to do with not having screen time to fall asleep, but also right before bed. Usually the recommendation is to turn it off 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime and to not have screens at bedtime. Lower grades in school. So I found a lot of interesting studies. I found a really great one in the National Library of Medicine. It was a meta-analysis, so it was going through a lots of other studies, and I'm gonna link this in the show notes. They found a connection between screen time and television viewing and video game playing, but not overall screen media. They specifically just found this between television viewing and between video game playing. Were inversely associated with academics performance in children and adolescents. They also found a negative association between screen-based activities and academic performance being greater for adolescents in children. So what that means is, as children and adolescents were being exposed to TV and video games, their academic performance was going down. The association was greater for adolescents than it was for children. So part of this, and they note this in the study, is adolescents often have a lot more screen time. That's why we're only looking at eight and under for this particular episode. But they also noted that each type of media should be looked at separately. We can't just say lower grades in school come from any sort of screen time, that there's a difference between watching Sesame Street and watching YouTube unwrapping videos maybe. There might be a difference between playing Minecraft and playing something on an Xbox. I'm just making things up, but it's not so black and white. So when we say my children aren't gonna have any screen time, at least when it comes to grades in school, so that's not that clear cut. Reading fewer books, that, to me seemed pretty self-explanatory. If a child is watching tv, which has. Really instant feedback there might wanna do that than reading books, especially if they're young and learning to read. So reading takes a lot more work and it takes more time to get that feedback of excitement. So that seems pretty self-explanatory. I've got some really great ideas to combat that. In the handout, less time with family and friends again. Especially if you're taking screens out with you, or if you've ever had family members over, especially if they don't have kids or your kids aren't wanting to play with their kids. If you turn the TV on, then there's less interaction, not enough. Outdoor physical activity, same thing. Kids, especially if they're tired at the end of the day, might not wanna go outside and play if there's a tv. The good news is in 2023, there are really awesome ways to stay active. Even with Screets. We're going to talk about that. Weight problems was something else I noted. I dug into this. I couldn't find a lot of great info. That really gave me a sense of how much of this was linked directly with screen time and how much of link this was linked to. Other factors if a person is, is a child watching a lot of TV because their parents don't have the means to sign them up for a sports activity, or they live somewhere where there's not access to those sort of things. I couldn't find a lot of research into that. I will say that we know that there's a direct link with within activity. There's also. Advertising. We have a weird thing for us that, we have a lot of streaming services, so there's not advertising with that, which I really like my kids. When my sons, he's a commercial, he's like in awe. Because he doesn't see them very often. But even with YouTube, because we're usually watching things in English in a country that's French and Dutch, our ads don't really seem targeted at all. My, we'll be sitting like watching Sesame Street or watching a Mario something ad we're getting ads for the gym. Or for a travel agency. So I can't speak to that much personally, but I do know that advertising is often advertising for lots of sugar, lots of chips, candies, and I mean, I'm not going there. We're gonna have a whole episode next season, just specifically about food and children and diet culture. But another thing that there definitely is a link with is, Watching TV for a long time and eating in front of the TV because eating tends to be less mindful, so distracted eating. So another concern is mood problems. I did find some studies that more hours of screen time were associated with lower. Wellbeing in ages two through 17. So basically all children through teenagers. Once again, it was seen as more of a problem for teenagers than children, probably because they get more screen time. Also because their screen time is probably going to be more emotionally focused because we're thinking about social media. So this was found to be after an hour a day. There wasn't really a link between mood problems and screen time for less than an hour a day of exposure. For young children, the children we're talking about. So under eight, there was a relationship between screen time and a reduced level of self-control. This study, which I will link noted that this was cross-sectional and not longitudinal. There's no way to prove a correlation. In other words, does a child have poor self-control because they spend a lot of time in front of a tv. Or is a child with low self-control more likely to be given more TV time? If you are a parent of a child who is struggling with self-control, are you going to just feel like it's easier and rightly so, maybe to put on the TV than. try to get them to do something that's more focused, knowing that if you give them a crayon, you need to stand there and watch them. Otherwise they're going to color your whole house, or whatever that is, and you know that the tv, they'll sit place. Another concern was poor self-image and body image issues. I thought this was really interesting because obesity was also raised as a concern. As I mentioned earlier, when they say weight, when they, when you dig into it, they actually cite obesity. So here we are sort of shaming parents and children for a link between screen time and obesity. But we're also saying that children that watch TV have poor self-image and body image issues. So we can get back into that diet culture next season. But this is a big concern for me if you follow me on social media, you know that body image issues. Are a big issue for me. I couldn't find too, too many recent studies about this. From what I saw, there was definitely a link in media consumption and body image for children as young as three and four. And this is for boys and girls. We're gonna talk about that a lot more when we have that episode on body image. But I would love to know how we break down that media consumption. From every other form of messaging our children are getting. So even if your children haven't seen screens at all, they probably know Anna and Elsa and how Anna and Elsa look. You know, they're getting images from their toys, from their dolls, from books, and unfortunately from their parents as well. Body image, I don't know how much we could look at it specifically. It's screens. But I would love to see some updated studies. So if you know of any, feel free to message me or put them in a social media comment. I would assume that some media would be better than others when it comes to these issues, but again, I don't know the fear of missing out. I think that, again, probably has a lot to do with the advertising. One of the first times my child ever saw commercials was we were in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium ma, and he only speaks English and French, and we were letting him watch TV at the. Hotel we were at one day and he was happily, he was about three years old, happily watching TV in Dutch and happily watching all the commercials in Dutch. And he every commercial, oh my God, mommy, I want that, mommy, I want that mommy. I have to have that. And months later, still talking about these toys. And he only knew the Dutch names, so that was fun. Trying to find some of them. But you know, it's this idea that you see these commercials and kids are playing with them, and I wanna have that too. So I think for young kids, that's where that's coming from. And of course, product placement then of these toys in shows. And when it comes to older children, social media is gonna be a big part of that. Less time learning other ways to relax and have fun. Again, seemed pretty self-explanatory. If TV is seen as the go-to, are your children gonna develop less interest in other things? I couldn't find any research on this, but I would think it would be another thing that's hard to break down outside of other demographic factors. When I was thinking about this episode and I was first writing the outline for it, I was thinking I was gonna say, we all wished we could live in a world without screens. But I don't really think now that it's 2023, that that is maybe even true. I know for me there are TV shows and movies that I genuinely love. These things are an art form and even social media, which I genuinely do not love. They do have its perks as well. I mean, it lets us reach out to people. It, for me, living abroad, I know it helps me reach people all over the world. We get to learn so many things. I think they can bring us together as. Families and as cultures, right? I mean, I live in Brussels. I, especially when I'm with the little, little kids, you'll see kids who are from all over the world and they, you know, before they start school, they don't all necessarily speak the same language. I remember my son would wear like his little Superman shirt and he'd be three years old and kids would toddle up to him and be like, Superman, Superman in nine different, different kinds of accents. So I do think that a lot of this media brings us together. So this is my crunchy side of things. I don't think you have to be no screens to be crunchy. I think there's a question of how can we make this screen time more positive? I've noted several times I have a great download and have really specific tips, but there are some, here are some overall things to keep in mind. How do we keep screen time more positive? One of the big things is to make it less solitary so you're not just parking your child in front of the tv, which I know is like, doesn't that ruin the point of having screen time? Yes. No it doesn't. Always have to mean watching TV with them the time. It doesn't mean you have to sit down and watch three episodes of Paw Patrol or. Peppa Pig. Oh my gosh. Thank goodness my first child didn't like Peppa Pig. And I'm gonna hope my second child doesn't. But it doesn't mean you always have to be sitting and watching with them. But when you can, that's the, the ideal. That's the gold star. But if you can't, if you are using screen time because you have other things you need to do, you can still stay engaged in the room with them. In between episodes or even during an episode, look up, you know, you're cleaning up whatever you're doing, you're doing your own work. You can pause it, ask a question, Hey, why do you think he did that? Or, what would you do in that situation? Or if, you know, even younger kid, where's Elmo? So that's during a show, but you can also stay engaged after the show. There's lots of activities that allow you to keep talking about even the most random obscure shows. Have things. If you Google them, and I'm gonna have some links again in that handout of specific ways you can do this, but they're often books about shows. I have lots of creative ideas. In that handout. You can pick shows that are more beneficial. So not all children's TV is created equal. This is easier to do with younger children. Once you get into that six to eight. Crowd. It's a little bit harder to find shows that are educational, but not impossible. And there's also a broader range of what something means to be educational. So that handout is going to have some of my favorites. So Common Sense Media, which is a website, will link that in the show notes, is a great source to sort of here's what the creators say, the ranking is how old a show a show is for a person. Here's what parents think is a great age, and here's what kids thought were the right age for the show. As well as, you know, this show had a lot of different things and they'll say it was very violent, it wasn't very diverse, these different things. So that gives you a little bit of a quick look. Using your gut is always gonna be the most important. You can watch a show, you can take time, you can do some research on your own, you know, your kid the best. There are certain shows that are maybe ranked older than my son, but I know he can handle it emotionally mature. And there's other shows that I would not let him watch because of how fast moving they are, because I feel like they're too violent. And as I noted, really anything can be educational, but it might take a little bit more work. So I used that example of Paw Patrol that might be sitting and watching Paw Patrol with them and talking about, you can find that lesson. Was it about teamwork? Was it about not rushing without listening? And you can ask some, some questions about it. Learning a language, so for a very long time for my son, he was only watching things in French and it really did help with his language. He actually didn't even know PK was an English speaking show until we were back in back in North America one summer, he was like, do you know they speak English too? So that's a great way if your children are learning another language or you want them to be exposed to another language with screen time, it is really important to set boundaries. That's a time, you know, we're going to watch X amount of episodes is usually better than giving a. Amount of time, but sometimes, for whatever reason you have to say, we're gonna watch for 10 minutes. But, reminding them, this is the last episode, we're watching for 10 more minutes, having a location, we're gonna watch in this room. It's not, even if you have an iPad, it's, you know, it's in a common space. It's not just a free for all And this is a really important one. I mentioned this earlier. Give yourself a break like everything else. TV isn't all good or all bad. It is a tool like everything else. Our children are going to grow upward screens and they need to learn how to manage them. They need to learn what a screen looks like and how to step away when you are really enjoying something. So this is a really important lesson for them. You can talk to them about what makes something fun to watch, why it's fun, but also why it's important to stop watching. You can set limits, whether that's, you know, we watch TV X amount of time every day, you know, after school, after homework. Or it can be less regular. In my house, it's not a regular everyday thing just because of our schedule, but there's certain days that my kids know is gonna be tv, and then when it's coming outside of that, you know, we're gonna watch one episode or we're watching for this amount of time. if you're feeling guilty about it, use it as a teaching tool. Do a little bit of research to find something that is a bit more beneficial. Screen time doesn't have to be sedentary. It can be active. YouTube is amazing for that, especially during lockdown. I think we all learned, but even still, especially in the winter, there's so many yoga and fitness for kids. You can just search that. I can share some things on social media that are super age appropriate, that get kids moving a little bit. you know, if you need a break, your kids are just running up the wall, but you're like, I can't let them, I don't wanna have them watch anymore screens. We're already feeling sort of sluggish and lazy. Find something else. There's, there's lots of awesome opportunities. Is that, I will say with that, don't use screen time as a threat because. It's almost always as much of a punishment for you as them if you say, if you don't do this, or if you do that one more time, you're not gonna have tv, you're probably gonna end up with a cranky kid and you can't put the TV on. So I personally recommend that never really being a threat unless there's a really connected reason for that. These things are a tool like anything else, especially if you're someone that likes a TV show, likes social media, whatever it is you like, you, you remind yourself that you're not a bad person for enjoying these things either. That's it for this. As I noted earlier, this is going to be our last episode of the season. If you want to keep listening over the summer, please check out my Patreon. That will have episodes going all summer. You can find the link in the show notes. patreon.com/ evidence-based scrunch. I want to thank you as always for listening. Please like and subscribe. I am going to be gone all summer. I will also say that I will be on social media sharing things. I hope you are also getting to take a break in some capacity this summer. If you want more information specifically on screen time, you can find the link to that handout in my show notes. If you joined us mid-season, please check out some of the past episodes I've been recording all year, so there's a bunch to listen to. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful summer.