Screen time: sensible limits by age and a family plan
What do the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend for young children? And a way to set limits at school age that works better than bans.
Screen time is one of the topics parents bring to our guidance unit most often. The question usually starts with "How many hours is normal?". The answer differs by age, and the most reliable starting point is the recommendations of international health bodies.
Under five: recommended limits
The World Health Organization's 2019 guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 recommend no screen time for children under one; for two-year-olds, sedentary screen time of no more than one hour a day; and for 3–4-year-olds also no more than one hour, with less being better.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) takes a similar line: avoid screens other than video-chatting under 18 months; between 18 and 24 months, only high-quality content watched with an adult; and about one hour a day of high-quality content for ages 2–5. Both stress the content and watching together as much as the time.
School age: balance, not hours
For children six and over there is no single hour limit; the AAP recommends consistent limits so that screens do not replace sleep, physical activity and family time. Since homework also moves onto screens at this age, better questions than "how many hours" are: Is my child sleeping enough, and is there screen time in the hour before bed? Do they spend time outdoors or moving every day? Are meals and family conversations screen-free? Is there a crisis when screen time ends?
Making a family plan
Bans often turn into bargaining. What works better is writing the rules together in a way that suits the child's age, the idea behind the AAP's Family Media Plan. The example we share with parents: screen-free places (the dinner table and bedrooms), screen-free times (the first hour after school and the hour before bed), a phone basket where every phone in the house, adults' included, goes after a set time, and a short weekly review on Sunday evening.
The most important part of the plan is that adults follow it too. Children learn rules more from what we do than from what we say.
Sources: WHO Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age (2019); American Academy of Pediatrics, Media and Young Minds (2016) and the Family Media Plan.
