3 ways to help your child develop healthy digital habits.

In this blog, we explore three ways 'we' as parents and carers can help the child in our care develop healthier digital habits.

Written by our Administrative Assistant, Sophie and based on one of our most frequently asked questions surrounding children and technology use.

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It’s nearly the end of January and I don’t recognise my children since we got them a form of electronics for Christmas!

Did you give the child in your care one of the following items for Christmas?

IPad
Tablet
Phone
Game Console
Computer
Nintendo Switch

Have you also thought “I can't keep arguing with my child about their screen time and I don't want to be seen as the 'bad parent' because I want to protect them from online dangers”?

It is good that you are reading this blog now because together, we can create healthy habits for life.

Technology can be addictive: it's designed to keep you wanting more.

We also know that technology and what we have access to, for example, social media and games, can have a big impact on our own and our children's mental health. It can also help people connect, be a way to express and be an amazing learning tool. So how do we manage and balance the good and the tough?

If we're planning on updating our child's access to tech, we need to have first developed healthy habits around fake news, what to do if they find it uncomfortable and a basic understanding of their brain.

Opening up a conversation

Opening up a conversation with the child/young person in your care is the first step. We have to teach our children how to be safe and develop those healthy habits. Otherwise, we leave them vulnerable on a frontier that we can't supervise 24 hours a day. If we don't, other people will, whether that's online or through them picking up what they see.

One way we can mitigate this without straining our carer-child relationships is by opening a discussion about boundaries. Whether it would be screen time or online safety. We can model this with our own use of digital tools and media and share why we have timers etc.

2. Making a new routine together

The second step would be to create a contract TOGETHER! So both sides feel heard and have something to refer to across the year for support.

Make it more than just a strict guideline or set of rules and guidelines and unlock its potential to help both your child/young person and family overall to achieve their personal goals and develop healthy habits in the process. By doing this you can personalise it to your family and make it so it is based on your values and what you love to do.

3. Screen Time limits

This is a classic and excellent way of instilling healthy digital habits: even adults have adopted them! I know I (Sophie) don’t look at my phone 30 minutes before bed.

It is also important to note that it has to be agreed on together and the time actually fits within your child’s daily routine.

It may be a good idea to first write down their usual routine and try to fit the time in visually, together, for example, a pie chart or clock with many different coloured segments and pictures.

We hope that these three tips have resonated with you and helped you and your family to develop new healthy digital habits.

Get in touch with us on social media to share new tips you discover and which of these tips have worked best for you and your family. Also, check out more great tips from the resources that inspired this blog (links down below).

The ‘Digital Contract’ resources we were inspired by:

https://www.screenagersmovie.com/resources/family-contract

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/family-safety/family-media-agreement-printables/

Categories: families, Family, Guidance, support, Working Parents