Tech Talk

As mentioned in previous Tech Talk articles, screens are not the enemy, but when they take up too much of your child’s daily nervous system, specific signs show up. Parents may miss them because they look like personality traits. They are not. They are symptoms.

1.      Meltdowns the moment screen time ends. Not disappointment, but full escalation. 

2.      Everything else feels flat. Everything is boring and even playing outside is boring. Your child’s baseline has shifted.

3.      Your child can’t tolerate this boredom. Boredom used to be where the brain-built creativity and now it’s a crisis that your child needs solved in 30 seconds.

4.      Sleep gets worse. Falling asleep takes longer. Your child wakes up irritable and the daytime saturation disrupts the whole rhythm.

5.      Aggression escalates over small things. Executive function shrinks under too much screen input. Your child has less impulse control at 5pm than they did a month ago.

6.      Your child won’t eat without a screen. Meals become a screen event. Take the screen away and they stop eating.

7.      You child can’t focus on non-screen activities for more than a few minutes. Attention span is a muscle and screens train it to reset every 3 seconds.

8.      Emotional volatility all day. Little things trigger big reactions. Your child’s nervous system has no regulation buffer left.

9.      Your child isolates from the family. They prefer their screen to being with you and participating in family time.

10.    Your child asks for screens constantly even after being told no. The asking itself is the symptom. The brain is running a script that it can’t turn off.

Which ones did you recognise? Definitely food for thought. 

Michele Jones

Digital Technologies Manager