In today’s world, children are going to be exposed to a screen. Whether it’s from a school-provided laptop to do homework or from a parent’s phone to help make a trip to the grocery store peaceful, screens have become integrated into our day-to-day lives in a way that makes avoiding them next to impossible.
More screen time, however, has been shown to increase anxiety and stress in users by up to 15%. Finding the right balance between using the screen too much and fighting a losing battle against screen time is becoming increasingly important.
Comcast Director of Human Resources Jaylon Demps understands this. As the mother of a 6-year-old boy and as someone who works closely with technology, Demps knew early on that she needed to have a game plan for practicing moderated screen time with her son.
“I consider myself to be an old-school parent, and I take the same approach to everything,” Demps said. “Homework, going outside to play, interacting with peers, screen time – it’s all about moderation and regulation. It’s a part of our everyday life. He's going to use it, so I have to figure out the best way to regulate it.”
In an effort to help other parents in similar situations – especially moving into the summer, when children have more free time – Demps has created a list of tips to help keep your child’s screen time intentional and impactful.
Establish ground rules early
“Screen time should be managed like any other item in a child’s life,” Demps said. “When my son got his phone, we wanted to make sure we had a solid foundation of how that phone was going to be used.”
Demps allows her son to use his phone like a mini tablet, for things like watching videos and playing games. Demps believes that the first step in regulating screen time is to have open communication with your child. For Demps, this involved building a support system for her son by asking him questions about what he does on his phone.
“We want him to understand that it’s okay for him to have the phone,” she said. “I support him by asking about the videos he watches on YouTube, and now he’ll come to me with videos saying, ‘Look Mommy, this one’s a good one!’ We’ve developed that two-way communication.”
Do your research to identify appropriate content
Doing research on the media your child is interacting with can be very important. With demand for things like adult animation experiencing a steady increase, the look of a piece of media can’t always help you determine its intended audience.
To make sure her son is only viewing content appropriate for his age, Demps turns to Xfinity’s X1 platform’s suite of parental controls. X1 is Xfinity’s entertainment platform for TV and video.
“I'm grateful I work for Comcast because we have X1,” Demps said. “During COVID-19 I was working from home, and I let my son watch TV while I was working. I spent some time figuring out what he could actually consume, and I was able to set all of that up on my TV through the X1 platform. I knew I was comfortable with the content he was watching.”
With Xfinity’s parental control options for TV and Internet, parents can decide what their children can and cannot watch across all their devices, including the television, phone, and computer. If a parent knows a network or show is not appropriate for their child, that show can be blocked using parental controls. Additionally, X1's tailored Kids Zone offers a wealth of children's programming all in one place.
Scale back as needed
Especially during the summer when children are away from school and have more free time, it could be important to find alternative activities to take part in as a family. This could begin as smaller increments of dedicated offline time or shared screen time.
“If I feel like my son is on his phone too much, we might switch over to the TV in the family room,” Demps said. “We’re all using the screen, but we’re spending time together as a family. Being able to do that is part of managing our screens in our everyday lives.”
For a more direct approach, Xfinity also allows users to manage device screen time with active time limits, downtime schedules, and the ability to pause network access for specific individuals/devices at the touch of a button. With the Xfinity app, customers can enable parental controls for internet-connected devices and access settings and preferences for them at anytime, anywhere.
All of these tools can be especially helpful for regulating screen use during long periods of free time.
Offer support
Making your children feel comfortable talking about their device usage goes a long way in helping them make good decisions while browsing. Having “the internet talk” and teaching internet safety basics early builds a strong foundation for good browsing habits.
Additionally, Demps recommends taking an interest in the content children are watching and helping them begin to think critically about it.
“When my son is on his phone, I want to know what he’s looking at,” Demps said. “There have been times where I’ve asked him to tell me about what he watched, what he took away from it, and how it made him feel. I'm not raising him to be on his phone all day; I'm raising him to be a person who can do a lot of different things and use his brain to be smart, wise, brave, and strong.”
Talking to children about the media they watch helps them feel comfortable to talk about things they don’t like, which parents are then able to avoid in the future.
Use available resources
Helping children develop good screen time habits can seem like an uphill battle, but it’s not a challenge that needs to be faced alone. Parent groups can be helpful in finding suitable content for children, and local programs like sports, camps, and clubs can offer screen time alternatives.
Many of the devices already in homes today have ways to limit screen time as well. Customers using Comcast’s xFi are able to create active use limits on devices, schedule downtime, and block individual websites that might be taking a lot of your kid’s attention.
Parents can even manage individual devices or create person profiles that include all of a household member’s devices in one place. Xfinity additionally provides helpful templates to match situations when device downtime might be needed, including bedtime, homework, and dinner.
By learning more about the parental control options already available on devices, parents can have a much easier time managing their children’s screen usage over the summer. For more information on Xfinity Parental Controls, visit here.
Interested in learning more about Comcast’s Xfinity and all it can provide to your home? Visit the Xfinity website to discover the whole range of devices and services at the click of a button.
