Balancing Your Child’s Screens During the School Week

How to give your child what they REALLY need after a hectic school day

It’s a scene that plays out in countless households across the country: it’s the end of the day, and the family is returning home from school and work feeling tired, hungry, and dreading a hectic evening routine of cooking dinner, clearing dinner, and finishing homework. 

In this initial transition from school to home, many parents see the use of entertainment screens, like iPads and video games, as a way to offer their children some much-needed relief and relaxation. However, according to Victoria Dunckley, M.D., in her article, Screens and the Stress Response, these screens have the exact opposite effect: they are stressful, anxiety-producing, and more likely to cause conflict within your home, not peace. 

More than that, by the time your child has come home, especially if their school uses Chromebooks, they have likely spent a fair amount of time on a screen. What their brain really needs after school is time for physical activity, reading, homework, playing outdoors, and connecting with friends and family. 

Here are some tips to help keep the screens from hijacking your weekday afternoons and evenings—and, worse, your child’s brain.

1. Make car time a screen-free zone. If you drive your children to school, your morning drive sets the pace for the day. Immediate use of the phone provokes a stressful start. More than that, with children and teens, the richest conversations of the day often happen in the car. If you miss it because their nose is buried in a screen, you will never get that time or opportunity back.

2. For elementary and middle schoolers, pack a snack and stop by the park on the way home. Get the kids moving and get them outside! Even just 30 minutes is a big help. Invite some friends and the outing will be even more fun.

3. For older kids and teens, keep them in sports or extracurricular activities after school. This will give them the movement they need, plus give them extra social time with peers. You may need to help them balance these extracurriculars with homework, but if you also keep homework a screen-free zone, that tends to go a lot faster, too!

4. Have snacks waiting on the counter when your kids get home. Food has a way of interrupting their race to the video game or phone. If you are available to chat with them, that’s even better. Remember, you have to break the habit of kids using screens to fill transition time. 

5. Leave your phone (yes, yours) in the car when you first return home from work. This stops young kids from grabbing your phone to play games, but it also stops you from reaching for your phone when your kids need your attention most. 

   Make dinner together, or make it in the morning or the night before. This will prevent the temptation to offer a child a screen while you do all the cooking. 

6. Hide the TV remote. Replace it with a board game, puzzle, or interesting magazine that your child can pick up as easily as they could the remote. 

7. Ban video games during the school week. No child should play video games every day. Establishing this one move will not only reduce your child’s risk of developing a video game addiction but also reduce screen conflicts during an already hectic work week. (Don’t have a gamer in your home? You can impose this same rule for social media). 

8. Keep all screens out of the bedroom. This includes both phones and laptops. Be very skeptical of the excuse that your children have to do homework in their bedroom with their screens. They are likely looking at something they shouldn’t be. All homework that requires a laptop should be done in the open in the kitchen if that is where you are. Laptops should be closed and put away for the night right when homework is done. 

9. Set a homework goal. Aim to finish all screen-related homework first, either before or immediately after dinner. This will prevent your child from using screens late into the evening when it can interfere with their sleep. Get the screen work done early, and pull out the real books before bed.

At the end of the day, remember: You are the parent, and it’s your job to promote healthy development. Entertainment screens do not contribute to healthy development. But time outdoors, free play, and face-to-face time with friends and family all do. 

If you are looking for more tips like this and to connect with other screen-conscious parents, join our Connect group. When you join, you will also get access to ScreenStrong’s 7-Day Challenge, which will help you reduce screen time (and screen conflicts) in just 7 days. 

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Where to start? ScreenStrong has the resources to help.

Melanie Hempe, BSN, is the founder of ScreenStrong, a nonprofit organization, and the author of the Kid’s Brains and Screens Series for students and parents. She is dedicated to preventing and reversing childhood screen addictions by providing scientific evidence and community for families around the globe. Her educational material is filled with everything she wished she had known before her oldest child suffered from a screen addiction. ScreenStrong has created what every family needs—education and the community—to skip toxic screens through adolescence so that teens can reach their full potential. Visit KidsBrainsAndScreens.com for educational material and ScreenStrong.org to learn more and join the community that is saving childhood.