Many children want nothing more than to watch Netflix, gaming, tiktok or YouTube videos. This presents parents with a dilemma: how much screen time do I give my child and what do I let them do or not do? You shouldn’t ban anything, say experts. That is counterproductive.
“I have nothing against iPads or screens.” With that remark, remedial educationalist and child psychologist Daniëlle Goedhart opens the conversation with NU.nl. “It is part of this time. You have to teach your children to deal with it well.”
According to Goedhart, it is important that parents keep control. Netflix allows you to set age-restricted profiles. The parent can also determine which games the child is allowed to play on the game computer.
But with TikTok and YouTube, that’s a different story. “They adapt content to the viewing behavior of the child. As a parent, you have almost no control over what they will see.”
This raises the question of whether parents should prohibit their child from using YouTube or TikTok, for example. According to Ingmar Franken, professor of Clinical Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, that is not a good idea. “Nothing is more interesting and attractive than when it is forbidden.”
“If you start banning things or imposing restrictions as a parent, children will look elsewhere,” says Franken. “Then you no longer have any supervision or influence over it.”
No golden rule for screen time
In addition to the question of what children are allowed to watch or do, many parents also struggle with the question of how much screen time they should give their child. According to Goedhart, there is no golden rule for this. “It very much depends on the child and age.”
“There are children who want nothing more than to look at a screen. Then screen time provides clarity,” explains Goedhart. “But there are also children who will do something else after a while. Then screen time is less important.”
Parents should especially look at the balance, says Koen Schobbers, author of the book My gaming child. He therefore recommends the ‘Play Wheel of Five’, in which there must be a balance between social contacts, sleep, study, sport and play.
“If that is in balance, there is no discussion about screen time,” says Schobbers. With a good balance, children don’t have time to spend hours in front of a screen”.
Decline in creativity is an alarm signal
According to Goedhart, several scientific studies show a connection between screen time and creativity in children. “The more time children spend behind a tablet, for example, the less creative they are in their own game. They then no longer know what they can play with and how to do it. To me that is really a signal that a child has too much screen time got.”
Sometimes parents think that children who can hardly be kept away from the screen are addicted to TikTok or gaming, for example. According to Franken, this is not possible: “So far, only gambling addiction has been recognized as an addiction that does not depend on substances such as alcohol and drugs.”
According to Franken, parents should not be too quick to use the label ‘addiction’. “There is only an addiction when it is impossible to stop something and everything has to give way to the addiction. And what would you rather have: a child who plays games or a child who is on alcohol or drugs?”
