Ensuring a child has the right balance of on-screen and off-screen time is an important consideration for parents when it comes to shaping their child’s educational years and can prove to be a tightrope walk of decision making. 

Evidence consistently shows that spending many hours a day looking at a screen is having a significant impact on the lives of our children.

The obvious question to ask is whether that impact is positive or negative in its nature, or is it simply different to our own childhoods? 

Like most things, there are two sides to consider before applying any rules when it comes to your child’s relationship with the multiple screens in their lives and the number of hours in their day that they spend engaging with them.

Technology rules

We’re living in an increasingly tech-led world, one which can leave you behind very rapidly if you don’t pay enough attention, are not tech-minded or simply decide not to join in. 

Although it can initially be a shock, if you've ever witnessed a 3-year-old happily playing with a parent's smartphone you'll know how technology, that has taken us some years to master, seems to come naturally to our children. They won't even consider that it could be something to be wary of.

Plenty of children’s activities now seem to take place via a screen in some form or another. Be this a television, a monitor, a laptop, tablet, phone or e-reader. These screens are both in our homes and in our schools - and of course, they’re a daily consideration for private tutors, ever cognisant of the parents' wishes relating to their child and time spent using screens during the day.

The world is now full of screens being watched intensely.

The parental tightrope walk

The conundrum for parents is how much screen time do they allow their child whilst not damaging their ability to learn and keep up with their peers? What rules need to be set and what happens when their child goes to school or starts their educational day with their tutor? 

Does it really matter how much screen time you allow your child?

On the one hand… Why too much screen time is a bad thing

Studies show that a student, when using a computer for homework, typically lasts about 6 minutes before they hop onto their social media accounts or start messaging their friends. When using a computer during a class, students can spend up to 38 minutes of every hour off topic or task. 

Findings published in the latest PISA Report (Programme for International Student Assessment) indicate that globally, the standard of learning performance is in steady decline. This downward trend is startling when you consider that, from around 2010 onwards, schools ramped up screen-based learning, with many schools investing in laptops and tablets for their pupils. And a smartphone has become as commonplace in a child's school bag as their lunch and pencil case.

There are only so many hours in a day, even for ‘I’m not tired’ children! Filling their hours on screens can lead to less physical activity, problems with sleep and slower cognitive skills. If you're a slave to the screen yourself, have you noticed a general inability to focus on more than one thing at a time? Have you become more easily distracted? Always scrolling for a content snack perhaps? And how many evenings have you spent recently dual-screening and not focusing properly on either? 

If, as adults, our concentration levels have dropped away from underneath us, it must be alarming to teachers and tutors worldwide to realise that their class or pupil simply cannot focus solely on them or the given subject anymore.

And now on the other hand… Can screen time be a good thing?

‘Good’ screen time is when children have digital access to fun and educational activities. These activities can help children learn, be creative whilst interacting with others in a thought-provoking but educational environment. Good screen time can also be a source of relaxation after a day at school.

Healthy screen time includes activities that are useful and help children understand the world better. This can involve educational apps and online platforms that encourage thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. These are all activities that are so readily available these days and can be extremely effective tools to help children, at every stage and ability, to learn.

Private tutors are integral to helping ensure children’s engagement with screens is well-balanced by providing a good mix of online and offline activities that include fun, education, and adoption of digital tools. A balance that will become increasingly important as the world demands more screen usage from us. 

Tutors can use technology for specific tasks like teaching students to explore AI, learning to code and carrying out research. Tutors also deliver important learnings such as questioning whether the content being consumed is fact or fiction and other valuable digital skills they'll need by the time their student enters the workplace. 

Applying a balanced approach helps children build important digital skills without relying too much on screens.

It’s all about balance

A good balance of a child’s time includes both on-screen activities and off-screen activities to gain a vitally important, healthy, overall balance of educational growth. 

Screen time should be balanced with other activities like sports, reading, general outdoor play and talking face-to-face both with other children and within the family unit. Mealtimes with everyone sitting round the table and where phones are not allowed is great for family communication and interaction, for example.

Every child is different and learns in their own way, making appropriate screen time usage a skill to master. To help as a guide for determining the right balance of on-screen versus off-screen activities, paediatricians generally recommend the following guidelines for time spent using a screen:

• Under 2 years old: Zero screen time, except for video chatting with family or friends.
• 2-5 years old: No more than one hour per day co-viewing with a parent or sibling.
• 5-17 years old: Generally, no more than two hours per day, except for homework.

Compare this with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report on the actual daily screen time age group (these are averages):

• 8-10 years old: Six hours
• 11-14 years old: Nine hours
• 15-18 years old: Seven and 1/2 hours

Balancing the recommendations with the reality is challenging, particularly when realising that the average usage figures exclude time spent using screens for school work.

When determining what the best on-and off-screen balance is for your child, be sure to factor in the uniqueness of your child and how best they learn, socialise, and relax so you can shape the balance accordingly.

There are some interesting points made in an article by Adam Caller, Tutors International’s CEO and founder, highlighting the importance of adapting a child’s learning to suit their interest and talent.

Walking the screen-time tightrope with confidence

As parents and teachers, we should encourage children to have a good relationship with technology – it is the way of the world and the future, after all. The trick is to make sure that this is offset by encouraging other types of activities that don’t involve screens. 

By focusing on balanced amounts of screen time, we can make sure our children benefit from technology without missing out on all the other important aspects of life.

As parents - get involved! Set boundaries, talk to your children, encourage good choices, give them access to other activities, say what you want to happen around screentime if you have a tutor, a nanny, grandparents or anyone else involved with raising your kids.

Inevitably, screen time is here to stay as part of life, but it should be controlled, directed, shaped and balanced to fit your child’s educational journey.