How much Screen Time is Good for Kids and how should it be spend?

Screen time. In today’s connected world, there are more and more reasons to experience screen time. Screens are so prevalent, it’s hard to avoid them altogether. Having children only complicates the matter—do you find yourself wondering what the right amount of screen time for kids is? Your children are likely living a very different childhood from the one you had. Balancing the good that screen time may bring, with the importance of other activities, can be hard. If you’re trying to figure it all out, here’s what you need to know about screen time—both the good and the bad.

As adults, most of us are tethered to our phones. In fact, we often feel something is missing if we don’t have it.
Children are now modeling that behavior and so it begs the question, how much is too much when it comes to screen time for kids? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says more study is needed to determine the cognitive and behavioral risks of too much screen time, particularly with babies, toddlers and pre-school age children.
However, a small study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed significant impact on brain development when children between ages three to five years were exposed, unsupervised, to more than the amount of recommended screen time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that children ages eight to 10 spend an average of six hours per day in front of a screen, kids ages 11 to 14 spend an average of nine hours per day in front of a screen, and youth ages 15 to 18 spend an average of seven-and-a-half hours per day in front of a screen. 
Pediatricians say it’s important for parents of school age children to watch TV with them and monitor any computer or screen use. It’s important to balance screen time with other healthy behaviors. Dr. Nauman encourages teens to be active 15 minutes for every hour of screen time and she stresses limiting overall screen time to two hours a day, excluding homework. 
Evidence suggests that media use can negatively affect sleep.
“Screens are very stimulating. They can really awaken the mind of a child and instead of a book, that kind of helps lull them to sleep or cuddling sometimes or talking to parents or siblings that can kind of help wind down a child, it (the screen) can help wind up a child.”
So does that mean teenagers shouldn’t be using a smart phone as an alarm? Dr. Nauman says it depends on the child.
“You have a 16 year-old child that’s doing well in school, that’s doing their best, that’s you know thriving socially and academically and doing what they need to do at home and you trust them and you’re monitoring what they’re doing online, then that’s fine. They can keep their phone on a dresser plugged in as an alarm and get out of bed in the morning and get it.”