Quality time at home – this is something precious for every family that tries to do better in this occasion. In the modern times we live, there are lots of t distractions that can ruin your best part of the free time with family and friends. This counts for the little ones as well. Kids are even more displayed to the tempting side of the contemporary world. Those tempting things are sometimes coming out of the computer screen. Even more and more children spend their precious childhood in front of the PC screen instead of playing outside with friends for example.
In order to change that there are plenty of ways to create more useful and efficient time for your kids. This way they will spend less time with their computer and will have a bit more varied childhood.
The most important thing for you is to try to limit the time spent in the world of video games. Lots of strategies can help you with this task. You just need to find the most suitable substitute for them in the real life of the kids.
The main tool with which you could control that is using time.
And time could be connected with the age your children are. On this basis you could create a suitable regime which will improve your children’s free time.
So there are some minimum basics about how much computer (or TV) time should your children have, depending on their age in the moment.
- If your kids are still that young you probably know that there are lots of baby-parent computer games or TV programs. They are able to influence and build children’s behavior and create a bond between them and their parents. Nevertheless you should not overdo with this moments. An example of 10 to 15 minutes is great for the task. This way you will definitely have much more personal time with your infant and you’ll be able to create strong bond, based on the personalities of both of you;
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Preschool age
These years of the child’s development have their tricks as well. They are continuing with their exploration of the world around, but this time they are much more aware of all that surrounds them. A lot of activities are necessary for the kids on this age so they could grow and learn properly. In order to be both the great parent and the serious one, 30 minutes of computer games a day is just fine for them. Of course they will try to ask for more, but hey – it’s a decision that you have to make for their well being;
- Time for school, time for your kids to meet and get to know their future friends more efficiently. Of course there is the situation when their friends play computer games for hours and your kid will want that as well. But after all the elementary school is that period when you still can make decisions for the little ones and it is all up to you. Less than an hour computer games for this age is perfect, no matter what the kids are saying;
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Middle school
An hour, that’s what they may get here. At least for the weekdays when is time for homework and other useful stuff. Of course you could let them turn on the PC for more than an hour during the weekend, but this depends on you as well. If they need the computer for a school project you could probably deal with that;
- High school – that magical time when kids do not want to be kids and like to have their own decisions taken by themselves. If you still have managed to continue with the good communication with your children at this age you probably do not have any problems. Nevertheless computer time here still have to be restricted in one way or another.
Two hours per day – this is what they get here and it is basically more than enough for computer games. The reason is that high school time is an important period in children’s life when they have to be preparing for the next level of their life by studying.
How to be prepared for this time-limiting process
There are few successful ways to that and the list below will help you to fulfill them
- There is a lot of special software that can restrict the time which is spent in front of the computer. If you could not install such a system to your kid’s computer you can always ask a specialist for that task;
- Just like the software, there is also hardware methods to restrict the time your children spend with their computers and video games. There are specific timers that could shut off a monitor limiting the time with the computer games for your children;
- Jump over the “generation gap”. Instead of forcing your kids to be more mature than they can, you can try to be a little bit more around their age. So when you are trying to make them stop with the computer games you could try their ways, by sending them short message or e-mail that time’s up and the computer should be turned off now. This way you will not be the boring dad or mom, but the cool one, which understand his/her kids very well.
The important thing from all this is not to simply restrict your children from doing something they love very much like the computer and video games. The purpose is that you should be strongly understanding and in the same time the serious figure in the family. This way you will gain trust in your kids and show them the right ways.
