How to get your kids to put their phones down this summer

Parenting in the smartphone age is like taking a test with no correct answers. 

By now, we know that too much screen time can negatively impact a child's mental health, brain development, and behavior. 

But it’s summertime. School’s out. You need to get work done; the kids are on your last nerve. Is it really that bad to let them while the day away on devices now and again?

Yeah, it’s not great. In fact, when it comes to the top “what not to do, let kids do” these days, it’s right up there next to encouraging them to get in a car with strangers or poke a raccoon in the eyeball. 

How much screen time is too much for kids?

The warnings have merit. Experts around the globe agree too much screen time harms kids of all ages. The U.S. Surgeon General has called for warning labels on social media sites — similar to those on cigarettes and alcohol — saying the platforms can be harmful to young people’s health, especially their mental well-being. Schools across the country are banning smartphones altogether. 

Those same experts give us a long list of what not to do:

• Don’t let toddlers under 18 months use screens, except for video calls with family. 
• Don’t let kids under five use screens for more than one hour a day or interact with anything other than “high-quality programs.”
• Don’t allow kids to use tech unmonitored, unsupervised or for an unlimited amount of time. Instead, “co-view” or watch and interact along with them.
• Don’t let children or teens use any social media apps before age 13 (per the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). 
• Don’t use a gadget to calm a cranky child (and the list goes on)

Why do so many parents ignore screen time warnings?

Screentime struggles are real and tend to ramp up in the summer. And that list of don’ts isn’t working. Not because we don’t want to be awesome parents but because, in many cases, it’s just not realistic. Careers, chores, and life's daily grind don’t stop when you give birth. As a result, many parents allow more than double the recommended amount of screen time — and feel really bad about it. 

“It makes them feel scared and guilty, but they don’t know what else to do,” says Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital. 

Compared to the screentime guidelines, the realities are a bit unsettling: 

• According to a national survey by Common Sense Media, kids under two consume almost an hour of digital content daily. On average, children between the ages of two and four watch 2.5 hours per day. 
• A poll by Aura in partnership with Gallup of nearly 6,000 parents shows that kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend a total of 3 months online every year, at an average of 6 hours per day.
• Teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours (or nearly 76 full days per year) a day on platforms like TikTok and Snapchat. 

Here’s the deal: Tech is a fundamental part of our culture now. It’s here to stay. Kids are going to use it, and parents have to step up and teach them how to do it “right.”

“I think that we have to look at all of these devices as the powerful tools that they are and then ask ourselves, ‘Are they being used in ways that help our children be smarter, be healthier, be kinder to each other?’” Dr. Rich explains. “I think that what we really need to do here is understand the power—positive and negative—of these devices and use them in ways that’’ help us raise happier, healthier kids.

What’s a well-meaning parent to do? 

For starters, take a deep breath and forgive yourself for losing the user manual you received when you became a parent. Then, put your own gadgets down and pay attention to your kids.

“Be present. If you are staring at your smartphone, your kid is not getting the attention they would like,” Dr. Rich adds. “Interestingly, one of the fairly subversive questions I ask my patients when their parents are out of the room is, what could your parents do better? And almost invariably, the first thing out of their mouth is, ‘Pay more attention to me.’” 

Tuck devices away. Go outside. Play. 

“Free play is the work of childhood”

When I was a child growing up without any screens at all in a tiny town in Alaska, I pretended a huge piece of driftwood was a pirate ship. With little more than my imagination and sometimes my dog, Pepper, I spent hours playing by myself. We need more of that.

Free play, “undirected by adults and unconstrained by rules and competition,” according to Dr. Rich, is the work of childhood. He explains it’s an essential time in a child’s life to figure out the world around them and how to behave in it. 

Another great piece of advice is to see a primarily screen-free summer as an opportunity—a blessing—not a curse. 

“We should approach this less as a struggle of fighting over the phone or not the phone, but really about thinking consciously about the opportunities kids have in the summer that they don’t have during the school year,’’ Dr. Rich explains. “It’s important to shift the perspective from what we do now, which is default to the screen, to what kids can do with this time that they otherwise could not do — like go to a lake or go for a bike ride. When kids actually get off the phones, they are relieved. They feel better. They feel more at peace with themselves.”  

Set no-phone zones and stick with them: No phones at the dinner table, no devices in bedrooms. These are the non-negotiables, just like kids aren’t allowed to belly up to a bar and down tequila shots or take a Tesla out for a joy ride when they’re ten years old. These aren’t tantrum-inducing requests. It’s the law. (Not really, but that’s the attitude to have around it.)

Not all screen time — or even devices — are created equally. 

Watching 30 minutes of PBS Kids is not the same as mindlessly tuning in and zoning out to whatever YouTube’s algorithms randomly offer up. And an hour spent on TeachTap—the “TikTok” of studying—is much more likely than TikTok itself to leave a teen feeling a sense of accomplishment and confidence. 

In my next columns, we’ll examine gadgets, programs, and healthier screentime options for kids.

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air correspondent. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her at[email protected].