In what is now known as "the before days" – before a pandemic landed like an elephant on their tightly-managed worlds – parents around the globe worried about how much “screen time” their children consumed.
Now, that seems almost cute. But as we glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel with COVID-19, many parents are concerned about what might result from one specific change the pandemic brought to their house: the relaxed rules when it came to their children's screen time.
Daphna Levin-Kahn worries about the amount of screen time her children Kira, 11, and Oren, 13, have been consuming.Credit:Wolter Peeters
“One parent said, 'My child just finished Netflix',” says Dr Jo Orlando, a Sydney digital literacy analyst who has been speaking with numerous parents about their children hopping through a daily technological obstacle course, from laptop to iPad, television and phone.
So should we feel guilty? And will it create long-lasting damage? “Look, I don’t think it will,” says Orlando, who has researched the impact of screen use on children. “There’s no evidence that suggests that excessive screen terms causes long term brain damage.”
Professor Dianne Vella-Broderick, head of research at Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s Centre for Positive Psychology, agrees.
“Extended screen time due to circumstances related to the coronavirus is temporary,” she says. “In time… children will realise how much they miss their everyday life filled with catching up, physically, with friends, playing sport and going out shopping. They will most likely realise, first-hand, that a world filled with constant screen time is not satisfying.”
And, adds Geelong child psychologist Tanya Herman-Doig, “screen time in and of itself is not necessarily either good or bad. Keep it as varied and balanced as possible, between being educational and entertaining, and allowing contact with other people.”
Indeed, screens that are not disrupting sleep or making children feel down can help them to cope with the stress of the pandemic, says Professor Vella-Brodrick. Playing a word quiz online, with a friend, for instance, “can be helpful if they are feeling lonely or have a problem and they need to talk to a friend”.
“Distraction can be an effective coping mechanism if it is short term and doesn’t lead to avoidance [by] brushing problems under the carpet.”
This is good news considering that, while many students in NSW and Victoria have recently made a full-time return to school campuses, many have not. In Victoria, students in prep and grades one, two, 11 and 12 returned to school on Tuesday, while those in other years are slated to be back in classrooms by June 9. And NSW public school students returned to school on May 25, but some independent schools have yet to open up their campuses or have a staggered start.
Sydney mother Daphna Levin-Kahn is the mother of two such students: son Oren, 13, and daughter Kira, 11. Levin-Kahn, a Sydney teacher managing their remote learning, worries about their physical inertia, which has resulted from them spending many more hours online than they did before the pandemic, and the impact of her family’s new, “not good habit” of eating dinner in front of the television.
So how can parents best manage their children's screen usage now?
“We just don’t want to set up those kind of longer-term habits of being disengaged from other people and other activities that are healthy for their wellbeing,” says Herman-Doig, noting that an obsession with online activities can detract from children’s studies, interrupt sleep, and negatively impact family relationships. Warning signs include anger and irritation.
To avoid this, says Herman-Doig, parents can limit the amount of time children spend on “really addictive” games like Fortnite, and instead guide them to more “beneficial” screen activities, like Pictionary, collage apps, and the Zoom's whiteboard function.
She also recommends deliberately slotting in activities that are not digital – like board games, card games, and playing with the family pet – into daily life.
Samantha Selinger-Morris is a lifestyle writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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2020-05-26 05:02:39Z
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