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How to Avoid Internet + Gaming Overuse — for Toddlers to Teens

Even with the best of intentions, screen time increases when the going gets tough.

They’re not feeling well. You have a headache. You’re trying to work from home. You have a conference call and they HAVE to sit quietly for 30 minutes.

That’s life in the digital age. But the best way to minimize the time your kids spend glued to their device of choice is to think outside the box. Need some inspiration?

1. Incentivize them to help with chores. Boost younger kids’ pride by saying you “allow” them to sweep the floor, dust the floor, or do the laundry. For older children and teenagers, you can take it a step further and ask them to put towels in the washing machine, prepare dinner, or put the dishes in the dishwasher. It’s a great opportunity to teach your children how a society works together to deal with a situation like the current coronavirus pandemic, and how we can do the same at home.

2. Crafts are always fun. Sure, coloring a picture is simple and common. Sometimes, though, a little mess is all that’s needed. Painting, collage, making paper garlands, making colorful masks. For older children, there are crafts that won’t be boring. Encourage them to make string bracelets, draw comics, fill their room walls with their favorite photos, make necklaces or earrings.

3. Find your old collections. They collect shells, miniatures and hero cards. But have you kept the stamp collection, coins, metal specimens that you collected in the 1980s? You won’t believe how excited your children will be about the things that once interested you.

4. Build anything with Lego, 3D bricks, make model airplanes and anything that excites their creativity.

5. Puzzles and board games. Puzzles are great for all ages, as long as we have chosen the appropriate size and number of pieces. Siblings can also entertain each other, at least for a whole hour.

6. Photo albums. So (if your kids were born before the era of Instagram and Facebook), search the high shelves of the closet and dig out their baby albums and old family photos from when you were kids

7. Let them eat sweets, cakes and cookies. Younger children are happy to help in the kitchen, while older ones can meticulously search through cookbooks (or use the limited screen time they have) to dig out a recipe or two that they will find delicious and mouth-watering. Indulging in such pleasures every now and then doesn’t hurt. And baking sweets is a great skill that will be useful to them in life.

8. Read and write. Not in the school sense. Use the time outside of school to order a few books from an online bookstore that they can really get lost in. Or encourage them to write a letter to a favorite aunt or grandparent. Or to a friend they miss. Or get into the habit of journaling.

9. Finally, play with what they already have. Chances are there are some toys or other activities in your home that you got for the holidays or for their birthday or some other occasion that haven’t been used yet or have been sitting on the sidelines for a while. This extra time at home is the perfect time for a lesson, not a sermon, about how to manage our time and be grateful for the things—and people—that we have in our lives.

Some kind of digital “consumption” will be part of their schedule when they’re not in school, unless you have kids under 18 months old (who, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, shouldn’t spend any screen time at all).

However, your goal is to keep them from being glued to their devices and to stick to the recommended screen time for their age. This way, you’ll ensure they’ll be interested in a wide variety of activities, and won’t be completely out of sync when it’s time to return to the regular school schedule.

And remember: good boundaries start with setting a good example for your kids. Even if you’re working from home, maybe more than you’d like, make sure you spend some time as a family away from technology.