By India McCarty
Parents are pretty much on the same page when it comes to setting screen time limits for their children — but what about their own?
“Kids have an amazing ability to call us out when we are not engaged and in the moment,” Matthew Solit, MSW, LMSW, and former executive clinical director at Lifestance Health, told Parents. “They are also quick to point out the hypocrisy of us telling them to put their devices down and proceeding to pick up our own.”
Basically, if you’re telling your children to put their phones away but keeping yours glued to your hand, it might be more difficult to enforce screen time limits, as children often mimic what they see.
“If you don’t want your teens to be looking at their phones at the dinner table, you should not be taking out your phone at the dinner table either,” psychologist Jean Twenge, author of the book 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World, told NPR.
Related: Screen Time Limits Aren’t Just for Kids — Parents Need Them Too
That’s not the only reason parents should be putting their screens down, though; getting away from your phone, laptop or tablet can boost your mental health and protect your eyesight. Additionally, disconnecting from your screens can improve the quality of time you spend together as a family.
SheKnows shared a study that found “57% of girls who can’t easily get their parent’s attention say they feel pressured to be online even when they don’t want to [be].”
“If a parent is always using screens and not spending enough quality time with their kids this can absolutely negatively impact their children,” DeaAnna Carpentar, part of Arizona’s Children Association, explained. “Parents should be mindful of the time spent being on screens. By being intentional and involved with their child, parents can help ensure that screen time supports healthy development.”
The first step parents should take is having an open and honest conversation with their children about screen use.
“If your child is spending an excessive amount of time on screens, it is obviously reinforcing,” Robert D. Friedberg, PhD, clinical psychologist and faculty member at Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, explained to Parents.””Positive reinforcement produced by screen time is marked by both pleasant emotions as well as physiological ‘highs’ associated with activations in neural rewards systems in the brain.”
Solit recommended setting limits in consistent increments — “It’s like getting into running, you don’t want to start with a marathon, just a light jog and build your way up.”
Whether it’s improving quality of family time, protecting your own mental health or just modeling behavior for your children, it’s just as important for parents to put their screens down.
Read Next: 3 Practical Ways Parents Can Help Children Cut Screentime
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