Minimizing screen time for kids is a modern-day parenting dilemma | Home With Tess

Last week, Zach Tuggle with the Mansfield News Journal dug into the potential consequences of electronic screen overuse by infants and toddlers. The conclusion, while not particularly surprising, still put a rock in my chest: Screen overuse by our little munchkins can lead to language delays and undetected hearing loss.

Since before my almost-2-year-old son Henry was born, I’ve tried to stay educated on the issues with young children having too much screen time. Studies show infants and toddlers don’t learn as much from machines as they do from people, and too much screen time can inhibit their abilities to read faces — i.e. hinder their ability to be empathetic — and learn broader social skills, practice impulse control and stay focused.

It also impedes on their time being bored, which in turn impedes on their time spent getting creative and being imaginative.

More: 'A cautionary tale': Electronic screen use by children can be developmentally disastrous

As of now, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends zero screen time for children under 18 months, and up to an hour a day for children ages 2 to 5. The World Health Organization’s recommendations are even stricter: No screen time under 2, and up to half an hour a day for children older than that.

I’ve tried to remain vigilant about this — not only because I’m worried about the aforementioned consequences, but also because I can see firsthand how addicted I am to my phone, even as an adult, and how much society has changed since smartphones came into existence.

I didn’t get my first smartphone until I was 18 years old and entering college. It was immediately life-changing: I suddenly could access the entire world with a few taps on a screen that, when I was finished, could fit neatly back in my pocket. It didn’t spend much time there, though, as any free time I had was consumed by my phone.

These personal phone habits have not changed much. In fact, when I am not consciously trying to fight them, they’ve only gotten worse.

How am I to expect my son to practice control on these devices when I barely can?

And as my husband said: “It’s basically access to anything. And what’s more engaging than ‘anything’?”

I know that my best chance of teaching is by showing, so I’ve been slowly working toward a goal of less screen time overall while remaining off my phone as much as possible while I’m around Henry.

Yet, somehow, remaining faithful to that zero-screen-time rule feels like a never-ending uphill battle. Try as I might, there’s no fighting how deeply ingrained smartphones have become in our society (a topic I also feel strongly about, but I’ll save my thoughts on that for another article).

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I also can’t deny that it’s practically the only way I can get anything at all done around the house with my son present, and I often wonder if I’d feel a little more comfortable and confident in motherhood if I used screen time to my advantage.

It’s also been difficult conveying my concerns to Henry’s grandmothers, who watch our son. And how can I blame them? On top of them needing some downtime, they also raised us without strictly monitoring our screen time when it came to TVs, and we turned into perfectly normal-ish adults.

That, I think, is one of the hard parts about parenting: We have to pick our battles, and there’s always the chance that, when we look back, we realize those battles weren’t worth fighting.

Unfortunately, parents of littles are in uncharted territory when it comes to 24/7 access to screens and have no long-term advice or outcomes to look to for guidance. All we can do is go with our gut.

This isn’t meant to disparage those who do implement screen time with their kids. I’m a firm believer that, above all, you need to do what works best for your family, and I’m sure that if more children were added to the equation, I’d have a different opinion on the matter.

But I also know it is up to parents to protect their children to the best of their abilities, and to me, limiting screen time is a part of that, regardless of what the studies show.

So, for now, I’m going to remain vigilant about minimizing my son’s screen time. In my short time as a parent, I’ve learned that it’s important to recognize your intuition and try to follow it. Sometimes, that’s the best you can do.

Reach Theresa “Tess” Bennett at tbennett@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Is limiting screen time for young kids a battle worth fighting?