The 5@8 Screen-Free Challenge: tips and tricks for effective screen management

A challenge that has lasted for several years

It's clear that our family has been taking on this challenge for over a year now. The past few years have taught me a lot about the why and how of screen management. I've also realized that it's necessary to empower children in their own screen management. As with everything Les Belles Combines aims to offer, we decided to put children at the center of their learning and gradually lead them towards self-regulation. Here are the essential points of my approach.

• Learning self-regulation or establishing clear, consistent, and coherent rules

Encouraging our children's autonomy also means teaching them to manage their own screen consumption. Just as we instill in them the importance of eating well (eating 5 portions of fruits and vegetables, having healthy snacks, limiting sugary foods, etc.), we must give them certain guidelines for healthy screen use. Following the first edition of the "5@8 Screen-Free Challenge," we held a small family council (find out how the Family Council works in the monthly Family Leader subscription!) to decide with the children on new screen usage rules. Here are our family's five rules regarding screen time:

• No screens between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays, unless there's a privilege! (Here, we use Les Belles Combines privilege coupons: 10 tokens accumulated through the General Store entitle them to 30 minutes of tablet or TV time)
• NEVER screens before leaving for school: children need to keep their full concentration for the day ahead.
• Maximum 30 consecutive minutes of screen use for older children and 20 minutes for younger ones.
• Before turning on a screen, make sure you've done enough to adequately stimulate your brain (we refer to the poster Do you want to turn on a screen?)

It's much easier to manage screens since the rules are clear. Before, we had the annoying habit of letting them play video games or watch TV, losing track of time ourselves, and then suddenly intervening by saying, "You've watched enough, stop!" As you probably know, this kind of intervention is rarely well-received by children and, above all, it doesn't allow them to understand what appropriate screen use is.

• Encouraging activities that engage the senses

It goes without saying that to forget about screens, the time previously dedicated to them must be replaced by something else. Here, together, we established the evening schedule and realized that we actually have very little time for screens. First, the children have to do 15 minutes of homework and 15 minutes of piano. In addition, they have a daily chore that takes about 15 minutes of their time. Once dinner was over and baths were taken, we only had about 45 minutes left to fill (to help your children follow the established routine upon returning from school, use our small chore charts!)

At the very beginning, we suggested activities to the children: board games, drawing, cooking, reading, physical exercise routines with mom and dad, etc. Then, over time, we left more room for boredom. We know that boredom stimulates imagination. As Tristan Demers says in his essay "L'imaginaire en déroute" (Imagination in Disarray), "a human being whose brain is constantly buzzing can give everyday events new meaning and more easily find solutions to problems." In other words, reduce screen time and let children get bored, and you'll get much more resourceful children. A very interesting way to stimulate creativity is to leave out small invitations to create or experiment: leaving books or games on the kitchen table to pique children's interest (a book on origami or learning to draw animals, for example) will be very effective not only in occupying children but also in helping them discover new interests and develop different skills.

• Program choice and guidance

Finally, it was also necessary to supervise screen time. My son spent most of his screen time watching National Geographic videos and informative videos about animals. He learned a lot and repeated it to me without me asking. My daughter, on the other hand, loved toy review videos on YouTube: nothing very stimulating about watching ladies unbox Paw Patrol figures and presenting them to children!

So, I no longer abandon them in front of their screen but, as Serge Tisseron, author of "3-6-9-12: Taming Screens and Growing Up," would say, in front of a "program." I choose some interesting apps or send them to the NFB website, which is full of culturally stimulating shows. Then, when they're done, I ask them to tell me in their own words what they saw or did on the screen. This allows them to develop their storytelling skills: using before, during, and after. Thus, screen use becomes an enrichment! Because it's important to mention, we are far from being technophobes! It seems important to specify that when we put all these things in place, my children were all eight years old or younger. So we started with the basics.

We still have a long way to go. We will then have to make them aware of the mysteries of the web. What is true and what is false information? How to behave safely online? How to respect one's privacy and that of those around us? In short, there is so much to do and learn that there will undoubtedly be several more editions of the 5@8 Screen-Free Challenge! In the meantime, if you have teenagers or pre-teens, take a look at our little tip: the Cell Phone Use Contract. And, to help you set usage rules at home according to the children's age, we have also prepared a small cheat sheet based on Serge Tisseron's 3-6-9-12 rule that will allow you to introduce the right screens, in the right way and at the right time into your children's lives.

Don't forget to subscribe to our Facebook page and Instagram account to stay informed about the next edition of our 5@8 Screen-Free Challenge!

Tisseron, S. (2013). 3-6-9-12 Apprivoiser les écrans et grandir. Eres, Toulouse. Demers, T. (2018), L'imaginaire en déroute, Les Éditions de l'homme, Montréal.

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