Although kids love watching TV, it is necessary to limit them on how long they should sit in front of the screen. Scientists say that children who consistently spend more than four hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight. And, if you do not observe the programmes your kids watch, they might get exposed to bad behaviours like aggression, smoking, drinking, and worse. This can be due to the characters they watch on TV. Kids grasp everything they see fast. That is why you need to protect them. How to limit your child’s screen time Choose programmes according to the child’s age. Choose the shows or programmes that provide activities and values that you want your child to see, learn and emulate. Apart from mere entertainment, you can choose for your pre-schoolers programmes that can teach lessons. You can even ask them to summarise whatever they have learnt. Cut the TV time to less than three hours a day. Too much creates laziness. Kids do not get a chance to exercise or try out a number of games. Some experts recommend that children limit their TV watching to not more than two hours a day. However, it is up to you to decide how much TV time your child should watch screen. Talk to kids about the dangers of too much screen time. Let kids not think that it’s a punishment not to watch TV. Advise them that it is not healthy to watch too much TV. At least, let them take intervals, but not watching constantly. Encourage other activities. Advise your children to become involved in activities that don’t involve screens, for example, they can play soccer, read novels, draw pictures and paint or do some physical exercises with friends. Allow their brains to think broad. Don’t let kids have screens in their bedrooms. Don’t allow your child to have a TV, video game system or computer in their room. It will be difficult to know what they are watching in the middle of the night. Some kids watch TV till late in the night, thus sleeping late, hence waking up late. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
