7 Practical Ways to Reduce Your Kids' Screen Time

Only about 1 in 4 Australian children aged 5 to 17 (27.8%) meet the national guideline of under two hours of recreational screen time a day, according to the ABS. Teenagers aged 15 to 17 average more than four hours daily. If screens have crept up in your house, you're far from alone — and you don't need a total ban to turn it around. Here are seven realistic ways to claw some time back.

1. Model it yourself

Kids copy what they see. If your phone is always in your hand, screen limits will feel like one rule for them and another for you. Put yours down first.

2. Create screen-free zones and times

The easiest wins are meals, bedrooms, and the first and last hour of the day. Protecting these anchors matters more than policing every minute.

3. Agree the rules together

A short family tech agreement — written with your kids, not handed to them — gets far more buy-in than a rule imposed from above. Let them help set the limits.

4. Make screen time earned

Tie it to the things that matter: homework done, room tidy, time outside. Screens become a reward for the routine rather than the default activity.

5. Replace, don't just remove

"Get off the iPad" lands better when there's something to get onto — a ball, a board game, a job you do together. Boredom is where creativity starts, but a nudge helps.

6. Use the built-in tools

Screen Time (Apple), Family Link (Google) and parental-control apps let you set limits and see where the hours actually go. The reports are often eye-opening for the whole family.

7. Protect sleep

Get devices out of bedrooms and switched off an hour before bed. Better sleep improves mood, focus and behaviour — and removes the late-night scroll that quietly steals hours.

Start with one or two of these, not all seven. Small, consistent changes beat a dramatic crackdown that lasts a week.

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