SAN ANTONIO – Santa might be bringing a lot of electronics to meet Christmas wish lists, but parents need to think about rules on how much time kids will spend on those gadgets to avoid overuse.
Oziel Ortiz, a pediatric hospitalist with Baptist Health System, said his most important advice for parents is to make sure that the devices are age appropriate. He said there’s a lot of advertising and marketing that happens, but you have to know how those devices really help kids with their cognitive and exploratory development.
“Some devices and apps, they pose as educational when the reality is they really aren’t,” he said. ”The focus of some of the apps, games, toys is repetitive memory, colors, ABCs, numbers and things like that, which are a small aspect of school readiness and cognitive development.”
Parents should do their homework on whether a toy is age-appropriate for their child or if their child is mature enough to handle the device. They can always ask their child’s pediatrician for help in deciding.
Ortiz said families need to set boundaries and guidelines on how much time kids spend on those devices, as they can become addictive.
“I think that’s the hardest thing to do, is ‘How do I provide this child with entertainment educational enrichment?’ But at the same time say, ‘That’s enough screen time, so move on from that,‘” he said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has guidelines for how much time kids should spend in front of a screen, TV, iPad, or video games.
Here are the expert guidelines:
-
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time other than video-chatting.
-
Age 18–24 months: Find high-quality programming (if you choose to introduce screen time) and watch or play together.
-
Age 2–5: Limit screen use to one hour per day of high-quality programs.
Parents also need to have some digital literacy and know how to operate the gadgets they are handing to their children, so they can set up privacy settings, Ortiz explained.
“The most important part is research toys, research devices. As a parent, you have to be aware that there’s risks out there, and you have to work through them,” he said.
For older children, it’s important that parents talk to them about the dangers of social media.
“Those boundaries and guidelines have to be set early. You have to, as a family sit down. You need to have continuous discussion about it. Bring things up: use of the device, appropriate online usage. These topics need to be talked about often,” Ortiz said.