Pediatrician Notices Drastic Difference 7 Months After Pulling Plug On Screen Time For Her Kids

Mar 17, 2020 by apost team

Parents these days are faced with the issue of children who spend the majority of their free time looking at device screens, and they wonder how much time per day is appropriate for their kids.

One mother decided that cutting out screen time for her 5 children was the right move, and 7 months later, the results were evident.

A recent pediatric study has found some important data about screen time in children ages three to five. It was found that children in this age range who spent more than one hour a day with screen devices had less white matter development in their brains than children who spent less than one hour per day with the devices. This part of the brain is used for language and cognitive activities.

The leader of the study, Dr. John Hutton, revealed that this was the first study that showed reduced brain structure in relation to screen time for preschool-aged children, reports Science Daily.

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Hutton is a pediatrician and researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. This is an important time for childhood development because these are the years when the brain is developing the most rapidly. Children's brains in early childhood are in a very adaptive phase where they absorb a lot of information and form life-long connections.

One mother took these findings to heart and found that reducing screen time for her kids reaped some rewards. Molly DeFrank is a mother, writer, and blogger who has done a lot of online reading about screen time and its effects on children. She concluded that too much screen time was detrimental, and she decided to institute some rules in her household to curb these activities, according to her blog.

She revealed on Facebook that she decided to limit the children's screen time because their behavior was being negatively affected by the device usage. She made a rule to only allow them one hour of screen time per day, which is the amount that has been recommended by medical experts.

She explained in her blog post that too much screen time appeared to cause irritability, lessened their creativity, and increased discord among family members. The children were very upset about the new rule, but they seemed to adapt to the new lifestyle quickly. She reported that she felt like she had her kids back when she reduced their screen activities.

Molly limited the amount of time that her children were allowed to use their phones and computers, and they also have a limit on the amount of TV that they watch. One of the first changes that she noticed was that the kids began to gather together and read. She never told them to read, but they decided to do it on their own as a natural alternative to staring at screens.

"I can't recommend a family screen overhaul enough," she said in her Facebook post.

Her children now bring books with them when they go out, and her daughter has increased her reading ability rapidly in school as a result in a matter of seven months in the same post. Molly admits that screen devices have some positive uses in society, but she felt that her household needed to impose limits. She hopes that other parents will take similar steps for their children.

Are you inspired to establish screen time rules after reading Molly's story? Let us know in the comments, and send links to this story for your friends on social media.