Currently it's completely banned. I was going with 'reasonable limits' but my son becomes rude and ill-tempered with even minimal screen time, so the ban hammer had to come down.
it's quite nice to see all those toys being used
Yeah, my first was fine. I never thought I'd be that no-screen mum but after removing it as a consequence a few times I noticed a huge difference, so...sorry kid. no tv.
The worst thing for screen time for us was the iPad and the kindle fire. The endless switching between junk apps was a nightmare. My son now has a switch; he gets it for 30 mins in the morning, and then he has to earn extra time on there in the form of chores, doing extra school work etc. with the switch I can control what he’s playing, how long he is on it for etc.
No limits here. They self regulate sometimes.
We have just one rule around devices, if they're asked to do something, chores, eat etc then they must come off it otherwise it's put away for the day. They hardly watch TV.
My child is 3, doesn't have any personal devices, she never asks for the tv to be on, will normally ask for music or a story to be put on though. She'll have to have a tablet for next year when she attends school but that will only be used for school stuff and in the dining room. Won't be allowed a phone until she's either walking to school on her own OR has started secondary school, not before and even then it won't have the Internet on and won't be a smart phone
Yeah I have a three year old and this is pretty much where we’re at. We do watch a bit of TV sometimes but I’m keen to avoid personal devices as long as possible.
Apparently when she starts primary school a lot of their stuff is done on apps and we have a laptop and our phones. So will have to get a tablet just for her school stuff.
In Scotland our winterborns can defer or start at four and a half. Homework is done on the seesaw app, some of it is on sumdog. I don’t know how other parents feel but I’m not giving them my phone to lose/break/get sticky etc and there’s always the risk that if they’re on my phone one of my friends will send me something not exactly appropriate for their age (aka screenshots of dickpicks to roast or local gossip)
Wow, I had no idea that kids that young were being expected to complete assignments online. My kid’s not yet 3 though, so my knowledge of school these days is very limited.
It’s weather dependent really. I’m not in a lovely open plan Taylor wimpey Showhome, I’m in an ex council house with kids sharing rooms and power tools and bits of plasterboard littering every open space at the moment. I’m also in Scotland with famously four seasons in a day weather and while we don’t mind going out in the rain and wind and frankly it has to be done anyway with dogs and ponies, I can’t be arsed with the constant mopping of floors and washing and tumble drying wet clothes.
So if it’s dry all my kids including the youngest tend to be outside even if the toddler is only allowed in the garden but when it’s shit the wiggles is permanently glued to my screen for her. The older ones at ten and fourteen don’t really stay in much though. They’re out with their pals.
Also Scottish. We put the singing kettle on YouTube too but hardly any English folk seem to ken the singing kettle.
My daughters all about singing *and* dancing. Not one, not the other - got to be both. If it’s a song it must have a dance or actions *eyeroll
Son is 20 months. Probably a little too much but it helps in the morning as he's an early riser. Probably a couple hours a day but he gets a lot of exercise so I'd like to think I'm not worried.
Yes!!
I have a 2 year old and we have cbeebies on every morning while we have breakfast and get ready. It makes things much more manageable. I also take her for a 1 hour walk in the evening, and if she gets really restless and demanding mummy cuddles, I put cocomelon on my phone and give it to her while she sits in the buggie.
However, I'm quite lucky my 2 year old doesn't have any behaviourally issues with screens (yet!).
I'm conscious of how much is used absolutely. But when I put it into context, when he's in nursery 2x a week there is no tv. That means he gets all his exercise and stimulated from his peers. When we pick him up we take him for a 40 min walk. Weekends we are always out with him rain or shine. It's hard reading people's comments to this as it makes you feel like you're not doing enough as a parent and are lazy. On reflection, me and my wife work full time, in stressful jobs. Our lad goes to bed at 8 and sometimes wakes at 5.30 like this morning. We simply cannot entertain him enough without a break ourselves.
We have a 2yo and similarly a bit of cbeebies helps as a distraction when Dad and I are occupied. It's maybe 45min midweek to get dinner started or feed the baby, and weekends it could be while we're doing essential housework or packing the car to go somewhere.
I don't worry about TV time so much, but I intend to keep phones and tablets away as long as possible. The portability and rabbit hole algorithms put me right off.
We limit screen time to 20 to 30 minutes per session (once or twice a day) and always have the girls agree on exactly what they are going to watch before we start. In some cases with longer videos like movies we'll agree how long on a timer and when the alarm goes off they shut down the screen themselves.
We sometimes get tantrums and begging for just one more episode etc. I just remind them we made a promise and if they won't keep their promises then other people won't either.
We found my daughter was much worse after any iPad time than TV, big difference.
But in fact after 10/15 mins of iPad time she now puts it down and we just hide it and she never seems bothered.
TV can be on for a while admittedly, if I’m wfh and it’s bad weather and she’s around.
We have a 4.5 year old and he doesn't have/use a tablet or our phone and never has, but we expect the tablet will come into play in the next year or so even if just for school stuff.
He does love his telly though 🤣 Paw patrol, fireman Sam, bluey, Duggee, Winnie the pooh. One zoo three and inside the factory. Bake off. But we're always watching with him or popping in and out to ask questions, check in etc. It's on in the morning as it's easier to get the telly off and everyone out through door than it is telling him he needs to leave his game/set up/we can't do another book. A bit in the afternoon if he's at home. And some late afternoon/early evening but it goes off at 6pm for the night, even if he's up until 11pm (sleep issues)
We did relax on it while he was ill and the weather was bad a few weeks ago and he got really moody and stopped wanting to do anything except watch telly for a week or so after so we cracked down a bit and made a conscious effort to get back to business as usual.
Looking at the other replies, every parent on Reddit seems so perfect. We are unable to control our kid's screen time that well. Loads of times we want to get on with something without him pulling on our trousers for attention
I don't give it a second thought. If someone can get by with no screen time, then more power to them. I don't see my LO offering to help with the pile of washing instead
I guess it depends on your kids’ personality too, but kids who aren’t used to screen time get more practice at playing by themselves while you’re busy.
My 20mth old has no interest in tv / screens or playing by herself - 4yr old happily watches a bit of CBeebies / kids tv etc but the 20mth old is purely interested in being a domestic terrorist 🫠
We have a 2ish year old and we do a bit but it adds up to less than 2 hours a week usually.
- Travel only for the tablet (long car and train rides and planes) with downloaded shows or Moana
- 30 mins after nap on weekends (Elmo usually)
- 7 mins (Bluey or Sarah and Duck) before bedtime routine on some weekdays while we run bath and get bed ready.
We stick with it as a routine so it’s on and over at set times so she doesn’t expect it outside of those times. If she demands it in the mornings we can say ‘yes tonight after dinner’ or something like that.
We also demand interaction with us while she watches, so we ask questions and talk about what we’re watching - no zoning out.
My son is 22 months. He watches more TV than I’d like at the moment, but we’ve all been ill for the last few weeks so it’s what’s got us through the day. We heavily curate what he watches, so no fast paced cartoons or Cocomelon. His favourite is Mr Tumble at the moment. He’s also obsessed with a video of MotoCross on YouTube (no idea why he likes that one video so much!). We also watch some Bluey together when we have lunch, but he mainly likes the theme tune to that rather than the actual episode.
He doesn’t know what a tablet is currently, and he doesn’t know you can watch shows on a phone either. He does like watching videos of himself and his cousins on our phones. We hope to avoid tablets for a good few years yet, and he won’t be allowed YouTube/youtube kids on them.
I'm not a nazi with the TV but my kid is not ever getting a phone or an IPad for their personal use (well, at least not until they're teenagers). I think that's where the issues happen.
No limits here, we do have two rules though:
No kicking off when we say it's our turn (usually an hour after we get in from school). Or it's banned for the day.
They've got to ask for the TV in the morning because I'm not having sleep disrupted for tv time.
Today, my five year old got up at 4.45am and went downstairs without asking for the TV, so it's banned when he gets home.
No iPad, we don’t own one. She gets to use it at my mums and there’s a big difference in behaviour.
She’s allowed the phone in the car or when we go to a restaurant before the food comes or after she is finished if we are eating still.
No limits on tv really but I have locked down YouTube kids and she only gets to watch the things I have approved. I hate Vlad and Nikki, Diana and Roma, the stupid sand asmr etc. She gets Danny Go, Blippi (trying to ban him though), Steve and Maggie and Sesame Street.
We also have Disney plus where she watches Minnie Mouse and bluey.
Omg vlad and Nikki, Diana and Roma and like nastya!! I don’t know how their parents let them do those videos! I mean.. obviously for the money but come on!
My 3 year old will watch anywhere between 1-2 hours a day. Not all at once. I do a lot of solo parenting and have a young baby and sometimes we both need that chill time.
No tablet here and not until school but to each their own.
You know instinctively what your family needs and what works for you...yes it's not amazing to sit them in front of it all day but we've got to recognise not everyone's situation is the same and we are parenting in a capitalist dystopia!
11 month old gets 5 minutes of coco melon or sesame Street from the 90's if I am literally unable to find a moment of solace anywhere else. I don't see this changing. It's for the "I cannot cope for 5 minutes while I must do another thing" times only. That is all they get though and it's a last resort.
My kid is 3. Typically she watches a bit of TV at the weekend (30-90 mins per day). We don’t do any hand help screens and will avoid them for as long as possible.
As soon as she starts getting annoying about TV we stop watching it for a while.
We don’t generally do screen time during the week as there just isn’t enough time. Weekends sometimes it’s on in the background. We don’t have any hard and fast rules on it. She has an iPad for traveling. We did no screen time until 1 and I’m not entirely sure it made a difference. Between 1-2 there was a bit of figuring it out, peppa pig doesn’t visit our house as she became obsessed. But generally I try not to worry about it too much, it’s another stick for people to beat you round the head with.
It's rationed as a basic schedule, but we are sensible and also allow flexibility to make things easier for us too.
10 mins tablet time whilst brushing hair before school.
Tv or tablet between homework and dinner.
5 minutes on my phone doing puzzles at bed time as part of an ongoing deal. This is wildly unpopular in general and lots of good reasons not to. I knwo peoppe are going to @ me for this. However it works for us and it's part of an arrangement.
On top of that, screen time is taken away if they are not sensible with it, if they can't turn it off when needed. Its taken away for a day per punishment.
I thought my daughter (4) was getting too much screen time so we cut it out completely. She didn’t kick up a fuss and enjoys colouring/play dough and other things.
If anything this tells me that it wasn’t a big a problem that I had made it out to be but equally I prefer it this way
Mine are 4 and 2 and they just watch YouTube on the television for about an hour a day. They won't be getting any devices for a good few years. There's a tuff tray and slide in the garden so that's been keeping them busy recently. Winter is a slightly trickier proposition but end up managing without relying on the TV too much
He has his ‘programmes’ when eating breakfast/dinner which is half an hour or so of CBeebies, and then some random dinosaur videos on YouTube when I need to get things done eg shower.
The iPad does tend to make him grouchy if he has too much so I always turn it off when we get to that stage, mostly we use it early in the morning cause he wakes up around 5 and I need him to be quiet so the baby can sleep!
Other screen time I think of as ‘shared’ and don’t really count is when me and him play Pokemon on my switch or phone, as we talk about it and discuss what’s happening so it’s not just mindless watching :)
Seeing all the replies on here reminds me of all the people I know who went to Uni and got really, really, REALLY fat because it was the first time in their lives they got a proper taste of unhealthy food.
My kid is seven. Absolutely no handheld devices - today was the first time I let him use my phone to navigate a webpage himself and that was for the election results. Previously he's been allowed to *watch* a chosen-by-me video on my phone, but I would stand it up and he wasn't allowed to touch it.
We started with the Nutcracker Ballet on TV at Christmas when he was around 18m. Didn't watch anything but ballet or orchestral music on TV until he was about 4, when we got a Tv license and started letting him watch Cbeebies. To start with the limit was "three videos" to a maximum of half an hour (ish), which meant he could choose the length and he was incentivised to watch longer, more complex episodes. (For some reason I got very tired of number blocks and alpha blocks very quickly.)
Consoles: we have a playstation which connects to the big TV. Not sure when he started playing with his dad, either older three or younger four. His dad had to be available for him to play. When he turned six we got minecraft forthe playstation, and he was allowed to play that or spyro by himself. I set a really long limit on it that summer hols (like, two hours) to let him try to self-regulate, with the caveat that if he whined about being asked to turn it off, there would be no playing at all the next day. If he kicked off, there would be no games or TV for multiple days. It worked pretty well.
We also had the rule that before playing video games or watching TV, he had to have completed a few self-care tasks - be hydrated, have eaten a decent amount at the most recent meal (breakfast or lunch), have been to the toilet recently, and have been outside that day.
Currently it's completely banned. I was going with 'reasonable limits' but my son becomes rude and ill-tempered with even minimal screen time, so the ban hammer had to come down. it's quite nice to see all those toys being used
Pretty much the same, turns into a terrorist after TV. As with everything, every child is different.
Yeah, my first was fine. I never thought I'd be that no-screen mum but after removing it as a consequence a few times I noticed a huge difference, so...sorry kid. no tv.
Same here!
The worst thing for screen time for us was the iPad and the kindle fire. The endless switching between junk apps was a nightmare. My son now has a switch; he gets it for 30 mins in the morning, and then he has to earn extra time on there in the form of chores, doing extra school work etc. with the switch I can control what he’s playing, how long he is on it for etc.
No limits here. They self regulate sometimes. We have just one rule around devices, if they're asked to do something, chores, eat etc then they must come off it otherwise it's put away for the day. They hardly watch TV.
My child is 3, doesn't have any personal devices, she never asks for the tv to be on, will normally ask for music or a story to be put on though. She'll have to have a tablet for next year when she attends school but that will only be used for school stuff and in the dining room. Won't be allowed a phone until she's either walking to school on her own OR has started secondary school, not before and even then it won't have the Internet on and won't be a smart phone
Yeah I have a three year old and this is pretty much where we’re at. We do watch a bit of TV sometimes but I’m keen to avoid personal devices as long as possible.
Why would a 4 year old need a tablet for school? No judgement, just really perplexed by that statement.
Apparently when she starts primary school a lot of their stuff is done on apps and we have a laptop and our phones. So will have to get a tablet just for her school stuff.
In Scotland our winterborns can defer or start at four and a half. Homework is done on the seesaw app, some of it is on sumdog. I don’t know how other parents feel but I’m not giving them my phone to lose/break/get sticky etc and there’s always the risk that if they’re on my phone one of my friends will send me something not exactly appropriate for their age (aka screenshots of dickpicks to roast or local gossip)
Wow, I had no idea that kids that young were being expected to complete assignments online. My kid’s not yet 3 though, so my knowledge of school these days is very limited.
Yep. Only their reading book isn’t done on there.
It’s weather dependent really. I’m not in a lovely open plan Taylor wimpey Showhome, I’m in an ex council house with kids sharing rooms and power tools and bits of plasterboard littering every open space at the moment. I’m also in Scotland with famously four seasons in a day weather and while we don’t mind going out in the rain and wind and frankly it has to be done anyway with dogs and ponies, I can’t be arsed with the constant mopping of floors and washing and tumble drying wet clothes. So if it’s dry all my kids including the youngest tend to be outside even if the toddler is only allowed in the garden but when it’s shit the wiggles is permanently glued to my screen for her. The older ones at ten and fourteen don’t really stay in much though. They’re out with their pals.
I read this as I have the wiggles on for my baby because its the closest thing to music other than the singing kettle 😭
Also Scottish. We put the singing kettle on YouTube too but hardly any English folk seem to ken the singing kettle. My daughters all about singing *and* dancing. Not one, not the other - got to be both. If it’s a song it must have a dance or actions *eyeroll
Son is 20 months. Probably a little too much but it helps in the morning as he's an early riser. Probably a couple hours a day but he gets a lot of exercise so I'd like to think I'm not worried.
Yes!! I have a 2 year old and we have cbeebies on every morning while we have breakfast and get ready. It makes things much more manageable. I also take her for a 1 hour walk in the evening, and if she gets really restless and demanding mummy cuddles, I put cocomelon on my phone and give it to her while she sits in the buggie. However, I'm quite lucky my 2 year old doesn't have any behaviourally issues with screens (yet!).
I'm conscious of how much is used absolutely. But when I put it into context, when he's in nursery 2x a week there is no tv. That means he gets all his exercise and stimulated from his peers. When we pick him up we take him for a 40 min walk. Weekends we are always out with him rain or shine. It's hard reading people's comments to this as it makes you feel like you're not doing enough as a parent and are lazy. On reflection, me and my wife work full time, in stressful jobs. Our lad goes to bed at 8 and sometimes wakes at 5.30 like this morning. We simply cannot entertain him enough without a break ourselves.
We have a 2yo and similarly a bit of cbeebies helps as a distraction when Dad and I are occupied. It's maybe 45min midweek to get dinner started or feed the baby, and weekends it could be while we're doing essential housework or packing the car to go somewhere. I don't worry about TV time so much, but I intend to keep phones and tablets away as long as possible. The portability and rabbit hole algorithms put me right off.
We limit screen time to 20 to 30 minutes per session (once or twice a day) and always have the girls agree on exactly what they are going to watch before we start. In some cases with longer videos like movies we'll agree how long on a timer and when the alarm goes off they shut down the screen themselves. We sometimes get tantrums and begging for just one more episode etc. I just remind them we made a promise and if they won't keep their promises then other people won't either.
We found my daughter was much worse after any iPad time than TV, big difference. But in fact after 10/15 mins of iPad time she now puts it down and we just hide it and she never seems bothered. TV can be on for a while admittedly, if I’m wfh and it’s bad weather and she’s around.
Our 9 month old will sometimes have nursery rhymes or Ms Rachel on while she's playing. Some days for longer than others. Helps me get shit done
We have a 4.5 year old and he doesn't have/use a tablet or our phone and never has, but we expect the tablet will come into play in the next year or so even if just for school stuff. He does love his telly though 🤣 Paw patrol, fireman Sam, bluey, Duggee, Winnie the pooh. One zoo three and inside the factory. Bake off. But we're always watching with him or popping in and out to ask questions, check in etc. It's on in the morning as it's easier to get the telly off and everyone out through door than it is telling him he needs to leave his game/set up/we can't do another book. A bit in the afternoon if he's at home. And some late afternoon/early evening but it goes off at 6pm for the night, even if he's up until 11pm (sleep issues) We did relax on it while he was ill and the weather was bad a few weeks ago and he got really moody and stopped wanting to do anything except watch telly for a week or so after so we cracked down a bit and made a conscious effort to get back to business as usual.
Looking at the other replies, every parent on Reddit seems so perfect. We are unable to control our kid's screen time that well. Loads of times we want to get on with something without him pulling on our trousers for attention
Yeah these threads always attract the no screen time smug parents But I saw a scientific study saying the average was 2-3hrs a day
I don't give it a second thought. If someone can get by with no screen time, then more power to them. I don't see my LO offering to help with the pile of washing instead
I guess it depends on your kids’ personality too, but kids who aren’t used to screen time get more practice at playing by themselves while you’re busy.
Yeah. To be honest it gets too exhausting if not for screen time. But, definitely, the more you can prevent it, the better
My 20mth old has no interest in tv / screens or playing by herself - 4yr old happily watches a bit of CBeebies / kids tv etc but the 20mth old is purely interested in being a domestic terrorist 🫠
We have a 2ish year old and we do a bit but it adds up to less than 2 hours a week usually. - Travel only for the tablet (long car and train rides and planes) with downloaded shows or Moana - 30 mins after nap on weekends (Elmo usually) - 7 mins (Bluey or Sarah and Duck) before bedtime routine on some weekdays while we run bath and get bed ready. We stick with it as a routine so it’s on and over at set times so she doesn’t expect it outside of those times. If she demands it in the mornings we can say ‘yes tonight after dinner’ or something like that. We also demand interaction with us while she watches, so we ask questions and talk about what we’re watching - no zoning out.
My son is 22 months. He watches more TV than I’d like at the moment, but we’ve all been ill for the last few weeks so it’s what’s got us through the day. We heavily curate what he watches, so no fast paced cartoons or Cocomelon. His favourite is Mr Tumble at the moment. He’s also obsessed with a video of MotoCross on YouTube (no idea why he likes that one video so much!). We also watch some Bluey together when we have lunch, but he mainly likes the theme tune to that rather than the actual episode. He doesn’t know what a tablet is currently, and he doesn’t know you can watch shows on a phone either. He does like watching videos of himself and his cousins on our phones. We hope to avoid tablets for a good few years yet, and he won’t be allowed YouTube/youtube kids on them.
I'm not a nazi with the TV but my kid is not ever getting a phone or an IPad for their personal use (well, at least not until they're teenagers). I think that's where the issues happen.
No limits here, we do have two rules though: No kicking off when we say it's our turn (usually an hour after we get in from school). Or it's banned for the day. They've got to ask for the TV in the morning because I'm not having sleep disrupted for tv time. Today, my five year old got up at 4.45am and went downstairs without asking for the TV, so it's banned when he gets home.
No iPad, we don’t own one. She gets to use it at my mums and there’s a big difference in behaviour. She’s allowed the phone in the car or when we go to a restaurant before the food comes or after she is finished if we are eating still. No limits on tv really but I have locked down YouTube kids and she only gets to watch the things I have approved. I hate Vlad and Nikki, Diana and Roma, the stupid sand asmr etc. She gets Danny Go, Blippi (trying to ban him though), Steve and Maggie and Sesame Street. We also have Disney plus where she watches Minnie Mouse and bluey.
Omg vlad and Nikki, Diana and Roma and like nastya!! I don’t know how their parents let them do those videos! I mean.. obviously for the money but come on!
My 3 year old will watch anywhere between 1-2 hours a day. Not all at once. I do a lot of solo parenting and have a young baby and sometimes we both need that chill time. No tablet here and not until school but to each their own. You know instinctively what your family needs and what works for you...yes it's not amazing to sit them in front of it all day but we've got to recognise not everyone's situation is the same and we are parenting in a capitalist dystopia!
11 month old gets 5 minutes of coco melon or sesame Street from the 90's if I am literally unable to find a moment of solace anywhere else. I don't see this changing. It's for the "I cannot cope for 5 minutes while I must do another thing" times only. That is all they get though and it's a last resort.
No hand held devices, no iPads, phones etc. He's almost 3, we do a bit of TV before bed but about 30 mins a day ish
My kid is 3. Typically she watches a bit of TV at the weekend (30-90 mins per day). We don’t do any hand help screens and will avoid them for as long as possible. As soon as she starts getting annoying about TV we stop watching it for a while.
We don’t generally do screen time during the week as there just isn’t enough time. Weekends sometimes it’s on in the background. We don’t have any hard and fast rules on it. She has an iPad for traveling. We did no screen time until 1 and I’m not entirely sure it made a difference. Between 1-2 there was a bit of figuring it out, peppa pig doesn’t visit our house as she became obsessed. But generally I try not to worry about it too much, it’s another stick for people to beat you round the head with.
It's rationed as a basic schedule, but we are sensible and also allow flexibility to make things easier for us too. 10 mins tablet time whilst brushing hair before school. Tv or tablet between homework and dinner. 5 minutes on my phone doing puzzles at bed time as part of an ongoing deal. This is wildly unpopular in general and lots of good reasons not to. I knwo peoppe are going to @ me for this. However it works for us and it's part of an arrangement. On top of that, screen time is taken away if they are not sensible with it, if they can't turn it off when needed. Its taken away for a day per punishment.
19 months, zero screen time, she loves her Yoto
Too much at the moment but we just had another baby so needs must.
I thought my daughter (4) was getting too much screen time so we cut it out completely. She didn’t kick up a fuss and enjoys colouring/play dough and other things. If anything this tells me that it wasn’t a big a problem that I had made it out to be but equally I prefer it this way
My tv is always on because I can't handle a quiet house, so it's often the wiggles or signing kettle for my 4mo because it's easy listening for me 🤣
Mine are 4 and 2 and they just watch YouTube on the television for about an hour a day. They won't be getting any devices for a good few years. There's a tuff tray and slide in the garden so that's been keeping them busy recently. Winter is a slightly trickier proposition but end up managing without relying on the TV too much
He has his ‘programmes’ when eating breakfast/dinner which is half an hour or so of CBeebies, and then some random dinosaur videos on YouTube when I need to get things done eg shower. The iPad does tend to make him grouchy if he has too much so I always turn it off when we get to that stage, mostly we use it early in the morning cause he wakes up around 5 and I need him to be quiet so the baby can sleep! Other screen time I think of as ‘shared’ and don’t really count is when me and him play Pokemon on my switch or phone, as we talk about it and discuss what’s happening so it’s not just mindless watching :)
Seeing all the replies on here reminds me of all the people I know who went to Uni and got really, really, REALLY fat because it was the first time in their lives they got a proper taste of unhealthy food.
My kid is seven. Absolutely no handheld devices - today was the first time I let him use my phone to navigate a webpage himself and that was for the election results. Previously he's been allowed to *watch* a chosen-by-me video on my phone, but I would stand it up and he wasn't allowed to touch it. We started with the Nutcracker Ballet on TV at Christmas when he was around 18m. Didn't watch anything but ballet or orchestral music on TV until he was about 4, when we got a Tv license and started letting him watch Cbeebies. To start with the limit was "three videos" to a maximum of half an hour (ish), which meant he could choose the length and he was incentivised to watch longer, more complex episodes. (For some reason I got very tired of number blocks and alpha blocks very quickly.) Consoles: we have a playstation which connects to the big TV. Not sure when he started playing with his dad, either older three or younger four. His dad had to be available for him to play. When he turned six we got minecraft forthe playstation, and he was allowed to play that or spyro by himself. I set a really long limit on it that summer hols (like, two hours) to let him try to self-regulate, with the caveat that if he whined about being asked to turn it off, there would be no playing at all the next day. If he kicked off, there would be no games or TV for multiple days. It worked pretty well. We also had the rule that before playing video games or watching TV, he had to have completed a few self-care tasks - be hydrated, have eaten a decent amount at the most recent meal (breakfast or lunch), have been to the toilet recently, and have been outside that day.