By India McCarty
Negotiating screen time limits with your kids can be difficult, even more so when you’ve got a child with ADHD. Here are some expert tips for parents who want to help their child create a healthy relationship with technology.
“Screen time feels different for kids with ADHD,” Bark posted on its website. “No one likes to be interrupted in the middle of a TV show or while playing a video game, but for children with ADHD, it’s more of a dramatic jolt.”
The post continued, “That’s why transitions off devices can be so tough. For a child with ADHD, logging off doesn’t just mean stopping a game. It means stepping away from a powerful source of focus and reward. This can affect them emotionally in ways that neurotypical individuals don’t feel, resulting in negative feelings and frustration.”
So, how can parents help their ADHD kids navigate screen time?
Bark recommends planning, whether it’s creating a routine that your child can come to rely on or setting up a strategy to calm kids down if they start getting upset. It’s also important to make these plans in collaboration with your child, as it will be more likely they’ll follow any screen time rules if they had a hand in drawing them up.
Related: New Two-Year Study Links Screen Time to ADHD
It can also be beneficial to really break down your kid’s screen time. Timers and warnings can help your child transition more smoothly when it comes time to turn screen off, while breaking long screen time sessions into smaller chunks can work better for a kid with ADHD, preventing overstimulation.
Teodora Pavkovic, a psychologist and digital wellness expert at the K-12 EdTech company Linewize, agreed with “chunking” your child’s screen time, telling Healthline, “Children with ADHD appear to benefit from shorter periods of screen-based activities more frequently.”
Pavkovic also urged parents to be mindful of the types of screen time activities they cut back on.
For example, “If your child is able to socialize through technology or enjoys being physically active by playing online games or following exercise tutorials, find other screen time activities that could be curbed instead,” she explained.
These tips can even help parents of kids without ADHD, especially as experts continue to draw parallels between ADHD symptoms and the types of behavior that prolonged screen time can encourage.
While excessive screen time “can’t cause ADHD itself,” Dr. Michael Manos told the Cleveland Clinic, “these activities may cause symptoms that are similar to ADHD,” such as an inability to focus or a tendency to throw tantrums.
Manos encouraged parents to model healthy screen behavior to their kids by disconnecting themselves and focusing on person-to-person communication.
Figuring out the right amount of screen time is difficult for any parent, and adding ADHD into the equation can make things even more complicated. With these tips, parents can start figuring out the best way to foster a positive relationship between their children and technology.
Read Next: How to Set Screen Time Limits for You and Your Children
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