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How to stop child from watching tv


Eight ways to break a screen habit

Before your kids enter the social whirl of school, you have complete control over screen time: You can make it seem as though PBS programming is the only thing on TV and that mobile devices are for grown-ups only. You could even get rid of your flat screen and pretend TV doesn't exist!

But eventually the real world will come knocking, and your newly socialized little person may demand to know about Dora, Pokémon Go, or Star Wars. Your challenge will be figuring out how to indulge your child's natural curiosity while keeping screen time from becoming a battleground.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends parents set consistent limits on when children can use screens and how much screen time they can have. Here are some tips on how to keep screen time under control – and make the most of it.

Make a family media plan

Draft guidelines that include how much screen time is allowed, when (and where) screens can be used, and what kinds of media are acceptable. Working on a family plan is a good opportunity to define your family's values and discuss how people can be good digital citizens.

As you work on your plan, keep in mind the AAP's recommendations: Keep screens out of bedrooms, turn them off during dinner, and don't use screens during the last hour before bedtime.

You can use the AAP's free online family media plan tool for help creating your family's guidelines.

Make screens inconvenient

Too often, TV is a backdrop to family life, blaring away in the den or family room while the kids play or the family eats dinner. Instead, turn off the TV when no one is watching it, and keep the TV out of sight as much as possible.

"We purposely didn't put a TV on the first floor of our house so that watching television would require a deliberate decision on everyone's part to either head to the basement or to the master bedroom," says Susan Korones Gifford, a New Jersey mother of two.

Keeping the TV in a closed cabinet also helps tame habitual watching. If channel surfing is a problem, try hiding the remote. Keep mobile devices in one spot, ideally out of view, and don't let children have screens in the bedroom.

Choose media carefully

Giving your child carte blanche to watch YouTube in another room or flip through TV channels is asking for trouble. Choose games, shows, movies, and apps together, assessing whether they're a good fit for your child and family. Read reviews, and preview anything you're uncertain about.

Involving your child in making these decisions reinforces your family's values and teaches him to be a discerning consumer.

Set firm limits

Media with graphic sexual content or violence obviously should be off-limits for children. But you might struggle with how to handle shows or games you think are simply dumb or unpleasant.

Try to find out why your child is interested in it. Does she really enjoy it, or does she just want to be able to talk about it on the playground? Check reviews from reputable sources, like Common Sense Media. Find an alternative and agree on a reasonable compromise if need be.

Watch programs, not just shows

Choose what to watch ahead of time, then turn off the screen when the program is over. This sends your child the message that watching TV should be an engaging activity, not just something to do when he's bored.

Record favorite programs to watch later, or stream them at a convenient time. (Recording programs also makes it possible to skip commercials for junk food, violent movies, and toys.)

Watch together

As much as possible, join your child during screen time, and focus on the program instead of multitasking. You need to know what your child is watching so you don't end up surprised if a show, game, or website proves to be not as kid-friendly as you thought. Watching together also helps you talk with your child about what she's seeing.

Ban screens during playdates

Kids need time to play and interact with their peers, and screens only get in the way. Make it a household rule that the TV and other screens stay off when friends visit. You can also ask other parents to respect your "no screens" rule when your child visits their home. 

Be a role model

Follow the same guidelines you expect your child to follow. Be intentional about your screen time use, and turn off screens when you're not actively watching a show or using technology. Put down your phone when you're spending time together as a family.

Certainly, peer pressure affects children's screen habits, but ultimately, children are most influenced by the example their parents set.

Learn more:

  • What to watch: The best children's television
  • How to make the most of going to the movies
  • Parent-child bonding ideas at every age

Children Addicted to Television, Breaking your Child's TV Addiction, How to Keep Kids Away from TV

Spending hours in front of the television can be disadvantageous, and in many ways can curtail the creativity of children. Here are some easy and effective ways to limit your child's exposure to TV

Keeping your child away from the TV is one of the biggest struggles you'll face as a parent. The number of programming choices available these days can be overwhelming and can easily take over your child's life. Research has shown that overexposure to TV can lead to obesity-related problems and violent unpredictable behavior in children. But at the same time, if used productively, watching TV can help your child gain knowledge about the world that cannot come from his schoolbooks.

So as a parent you will have to find a sweet spot between overexposure and no TV at all.

Here are 10 ways in which you can reduce the time your child spends watching TV:

1. Set limits

As a parent, you need to set limits to the time that your child spends in front of the tube. You have to be upfront with your child when you do this. Explain some of the positives of limiting TV time such as more time to spend playing outdoors and more time to bond as a family. It is better to be forthright with the child than to be arbitrary with the rules. You can use your discretion as to whether you want to allow them to watch TV during school nights and how much after they are done with their chores and homework. On weekends, you can be a little more generous and give them more time to spend in front of the TV screen.

2. Be selective

You need to lay the ground rules about what your child can and cannot watch on the TV and for how long. Find age-appropriate and family-friendly programming for your child to watch. You can read reviews of the movies and shows your child is interested in before you let her watch it, just to be safe.

3. Set an example

You can't set limits on your child and expect them to fall in line if you don't set an example yourself. So tell your child that you will also give up your TV time so that all of you can enjoy family time together. And follow through with what you have committed to as your child will learn from you about keeping his word.

4. Get out of the house

If your child is always stuck indoors then she will naturally gravitate towards the TV. You can encourage her to go cycling around the locality as long as it is safe. If it is a smaller child, take her outdoors for a small walk around the neighborhood or even to the nearest park to enjoy some fresh air. Playing a game of catch or cricket with other children in the park will keep her away from the pull of watching TV and will also help her get some physical activity. Get your child exhausted so that when you return home all she will want to do is head to bed.

5. Take up a hobby

Hobbies are one of the best ways to stop your child from getting hooked to the TV. You can get your child to take up multiple hobbies like dancing, singing, drawing, martial arts or anything he is drawn to. Draw up a schedule for him that will give him more time to pursue these activities and less time in front of the television.

6. Organize play dates

If you want to keep your child away from the tube, then you have to invest your time into making it happen as well. Every week you can schedule some family time with your child. You can make it interesting by choosing a different game every week but make sure to get the entire family involved. On the weekends, talk to his friends' parents and organize play dates for the children which come with a clause: no watching TV.

7. Get creative indoors

You can organize a wide variety of indoor activities to keep your child occupied. This can involve many interesting things such as getting your child to bake a cake with you, arranging an indoor camping session, painting the pots in your garden and so on. An electro-magnetic kit for making different things can really get some children interested. The idea should be to get them to be as creative as possible.

8. Help with tasks

Another great way to limit your child's TV time is to get her to help you with tasks around the house. This will help her grow up as a well-rounded adult and also help in cutting down TV time. But this doesn't mean that you dump all sorts of boring chores on her. Pick and choose the tasks that will interest your child the most so that she doesn't become resentful.

9. Choose alternatives

You can ask your child to list out the things that he thinks he will enjoy doing more than watching TV. You can help him do these activities instead of spending time in front of the telly. He might actually come up with some great suggestions all on his own. This way your child will feel like he has more control over what he is doing and will enjoy himself at the same time.

10. Escape into the world of books

Books remain one of the best alternatives for TV. They provide a means for your child to escape into another world. There are plenty of books to choose from. You can get your child started on something that she likes and then slowly steer her towards other genres. Once your child gets hooked to books and reading, she will automatically cut down on TV time on her own.

Everything in moderation is a mantra that we must live by. This applies to your child and the idiot box as well. It may not be possible to cut your child's screen time completely, as it's not practically possible. But you can still try to set a cap on it. Steer children away from unlimited TV time and towards other more fruitful activities so that they have a holistic development. You can apply the same set of rules to any screen that children are exposed to like laptops or even mobile phones.

How to save a child from multi-addiction: 7 steps

On Sunday mornings, I really want to sleep a little longer. But children wake up literally with the first rays of the sun. To lie in a warm bed at least a little, you pick up the remote control from the TV and turn on the cartoons...

Everyone is happy: the kid is watching Smeshariki, you are eliminating chronic lack of sleep. Over time, the TV becomes a kind of lifesaver: cartoons help when the child does not want to have lunch, when you rush between the washing machine and the burning pie, when, in the end, you want to calmly chat with your friend on the phone. The result is a vicious circle: you know that “TV is harmful”, but now that the child has learned the “Carousel” channel, it is difficult to wean him from multi-addiction. We tell you how to return a child from the virtual world to the real one.

What is the harm?

First, a few words about why, in fact, cartoons are bad. There is nothing wrong with them if they are strictly dosed. For kids under 2.5 years old, watching TV is not recommended at all, a child aged 3-5 years old can watch cartoons for an hour a day. The older he is, the more time he can devote to his favorite cartoon characters.

Uncontrolled passion for the virtual world of animals, fairies and superheroes is fraught with consequences. The fact is that children learn literally everything through their own experience. And this is not only the ability to walk, speak, write and read. The concepts of “hot-cold”, “near-far”, “dangerous-safe” are formed only if there is contact with the real physical world.

All the laws of physics are violated in the cartoon: a stone flying at the head can hang there, and a cat that has fallen from the fifth floor can get up, dust itself off and run after the mouse. A child who spends enough time on other activities, walks for a long time, is well aware that falling down a hill is painful. A kid who sits in front of the TV all day, absorbs only the information that comes from the blue screen.

Weaning according to the rules

Mothers, who once decided to wean their children from cartoons, note that an attempt to take away the TV remote control ended in hysteria. If you had enough strength to endure “here and now”, then the consequences for a long time made themselves felt in the form of nightmares, causeless tears and aggression.

How to be?

  1. Try yourself for a few days without TV. Estimate how much time you spend in front of the TV yourself. You can’t say “go play”, but turn on the next talk show and lie down on the sofa yourself. This is unfair at the very least, and at the most impractical! The kid will immediately fall to the floor and begin to demand “switch”. You can watch the movie even when your child is sleeping. And the TV turned on in the background while you wash the dishes is completely useless - this is an extra sound chaos.
  2. Allow watching cartoons, but do it in a special mode. Let's say not "watch, but only an hour", but "you can watch one episode." The series is over - turn off the TV. The main thing is to resist and not flinch before the cries of a son or daughter.
  3. Don't watch TV before going to bed! Move the viewing time to the first half of the day. Cartoons for the night - a direct path to nightmares, even if the child watched the innocent "Carlson". An overabundance of emotions and impressions will not allow the baby to sleep peacefully.
  4. Choose your own cartoons. Remember the main rule: a kid under the age of 4 associates himself with the main character, so give preference to those fairy tales where the hero will not cause negative emotions, will not be too aggressive.
  5. Reorient the child's interest. Yes, it is trite, but there is no other way out. Engage in other activities: modeling, drawing, books, role-playing games. Children love when they play with them truly sincerely, with enthusiasm, then the virtual world does not even fade into the background, into the tenth plan.
  6. Walk more! This is especially true in the early days of “no TV”. Did the child throw a tantrum? We quickly go outside. The change of scenery and your equanimity will distract the little man, who is eager to continue the story of Superman.
  7. If you can't cope on your own, contact a child psychologist. Believe me, this is not the case when you can expect that “everything will resolve itself”. Multi-dependence can come back to haunt at school age, when the child will not be able to concentrate on learning and will be listed as lagging behind. A competent specialist is able to solve the problem. To do this, in his arsenal there are special techniques and techniques from art therapy to family consultations.

Photo: pixabay.com.

Child and TV - how to get rid of screen addiction

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The long-awaited summer has come, which means that the children have more free time. And it is very important that this time not “leave without a trace”, but be used for the benefit of health and development. So, you need to make sure that the guys do not spend most of their time in front of TV and computer screens, but walk more, play, read, make something...

Why do modern children love to watch TV so much? How to distract the child from the TV screen? What could be more attractive for modern children than watching cartoons or TV shows?

The answers to these and other similar questions are increasingly being sought by modern parents. If a child spends a lot of time at the screen, then in the future addiction to TV quickly develops into a psychological addiction with all the signs characteristic of addictions: an obsessive desire to watch TV, tantrums when viewing is prohibited or limited, loss of other interests, disinhibition, inability to focus on any or occupation, increased fatigue, etc. TV-addicted children are constantly striving for a change of impressions, they need external stimulation, which they are used to receiving from the screen. Hearing speech does not evoke any images and stable impressions in such children, so they are not interested, bored to read and listen to adults reading. Many hours of watching television programs sharply reduce the creative activity of children, impoverish the images of fantasy.

One of the main reasons for “sticking” to the screen is the lack or lack of more interesting and meaningful activities for the child. It has been observed that children who play well are usually not too dependent on the TV screen: they prefer more active activities. Teaching a child to play is one of the most important tasks of parents. Be sure to involve the child in household chores (for example, bake cookies with him on the day off), spend more time on the street, collect models, weave from beads, etc. All this will give the child the opportunity to feel that in real life there are a lot of interesting things.

However, it also happens like this: the child is engaged in circles, sports clubs, walks a lot, parents give him enough attention, but he still strives to spend any free minute at the screen. In this case, it is possible that the child has a stereotype of using the TV as a kind of “means for relaxation”. The trouble is that long-term viewing of programs does not relieve, but increases mental stress in children. Therefore, allowing your child to watch a cartoon or favorite show, switch it to other quiet activities: playing with water, modeling, drawing, etc.

Let's take a look at some steps to help you overcome screen addiction:

    1. Replace watching TV and video broadcasts with listening to audio recordings and radio broadcasts. Perception of stories and fairy tales by ear requires more inner activity from the child than the perception of the video sequence, and at the same time does not require much effort.
    2. You can't watch everything by clicking from channel to channel. Discuss with your child in advance and choose when and what programs he will watch. At the same time, give preference to shorter video programs, rather than animated series.
    3. Set "unloading" from the TV days with subsequent encouragement of the child. Be persistent, consistent, do not let your child turn on the TV by whining, tantrums, resentment.
    4. Try not to use the TV while eating to improve your baby's appetite.