The Elephant Queen – available on Apple TV+. Chasing Coral – available on Netflix here. The Biggest Little Farm – available to rent on Amazon here. Here are a few excellent documentaries my kids have enjoyed, and they all come highly recommended by the experts at Common Sense Media: Research shows that starting at age three, kids can learn from slower-paced, thoughtful screen time activities, boosting everything from their academic performance to their social-emotional skills. But when you can’t engage with your child face-to-face every waking hour of the day, the right kind of screen time can be educational. To be clear, kids learn more from face-to-face interaction than they do from screens. It takes just a few minutes, you can do it at the dinner table, and it helps removes the burden from you when it comes to policing screen time activities.Īfter you take a swing through the list of screen time activities below, check out those special questions here. In our family, we came up with a simple way to make sure our kids get the essential ingredients they need everyday to protect their wellbeing: 4 quick questions to ask your child every day. One of the dangers of screen time for kids is that when kids spend time on screens, that leaves less time for activities that will improve their wellbeing and increase happiness, like daily physical activity or time spent outdoors. The kind we don’t have to feel guilty about because not only does it avoid the negative effects of screen time, our kids will actually learn something too.īelow, you’ll find a list of the best screen time activities for kids so that you can get what you need to done – no matter if that means working from home with kids or just sneaking away to raid your secret chocolate stash so that you feel recharged and ready to deal with whatever parenting life throws at you next. The kind that won’t turn our kids into zombies. And yet, sticking the kids on screen time several hours a day isn’t the best option either because it can interfere with our kids getting enough sleep, a healthy amount of physical activity, and the kinds of experiences they need in order to thrive.īut we can use screen time in moderation when it’s the right kind of screen time. When we have work to do or households to run (or both), we can’t always oversee our kids’ every waking moment 12+ hours a day. Screen time has become a necessity for many parents in today’s world, myself included. 
In other words, a child who plays Fortnite for an hour straight will come off screens a lot crankier than a child who watches a one-hour nature documentary.īonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get a free cheat sheet of how much and what kind of screen time is recommended for your child’s age and developmental stage, according to health experts.Ĥ0 Screen Time Activities That Are Actually Good for Your Child On the other hand, educational and slower-paced screen time doesn’t have the same negative effects.
“The quality of what children watch on screens is more important than how much they watch.” Susan Friedman, National Association for the Education of Young Childrenįor example, research shows that fast-moving animation or video leads to attention issues in children. Certain types of screen time activities can cause all those negative effects, but other types of screen time can inoculate your child against a zombie outbreak. Here’s the Good NewsĪll screen time is not created equal. Given these effects, no wonder both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend limiting daily screen time for kids. Research shows that screen time can decrease a child’s score on language and cognitive tests. It’s like her brain had stopped working.Īs it turns out, this isn’t uncommon. What healthy screen time rules do the experts recommend for families?Įven after playing “educational” apps for kids, my daughter couldn’t answer the most basic of math problems.What if my child wants to play a fast-moving app or game that does cause all those negative effects?.What are the negative effects of too much screen time?.What's the right amount of screen time for my child's age?.Frequently Asked Questions About Screen Time Activities.40 Screen Time Activities That Are Actually Good for Your Child.
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