From mums ahead of me We have not reached this stage. These are notes from other mums and my own checking, with no verdict. How this works.The short version
The rules were easy at two. The mums ahead of me say the hard part starts when school hands over a tablet.
What happened
At two, our screen rule was simple: none. The mums ahead of me laughed kindly when I said that and told me to enjoy it while it lasts, because at six the school itself sends homework on an app.
[Name] said the fight she wishes she'd avoided was the one about where. Her rule now is screens only in the living room, never in a bedroom, never at the table, and that single rule did more than any time limit.
[Name] uses the school app on the family laptop, not a phone, so the homework doesn't live next to YouTube. [Name] said the opposite worked for her: a cheap tablet with only the school app on it and nothing else installed.
[Name] said the number she tries to hold is under two hours a day including school work, and that weekends are harder than weekdays. She also said she stopped feeling guilty about cartoons on a sick day.
What I'm checking, when we get there: what the school actually requires on a screen and for how long, whether we can do it on a shared device in a shared room, and what rule we'll keep for ourselves, since the mums all said the kids copy what the parents do with their phones.
The Indian Academy of Pediatrics' 2022 guidelines: for children aged 5 to 10, recreational screen time should be under two hours a day, with no screens during meals or in the hour before bed, and parents are encouraged to model their own screen use. For 2 to 5 years the limit is one hour.
Gupta P et al., IAP Guidelines on Screen Time and Digital Wellness, Indian Pediatrics 2022;59:235. SourceProduct details are as we used them; the version on sale now may differ. Check the exact model and the manufacturer's instructions.