Playing Games on the Internet (day care, parents, appropriate, activities)

[nikkiheaven]

Over the summer, my 9 year old was introduced to FaceTime. This summer she has spent quite a bit of time FaceTiming her BFF (we moved to a different city) and playing games on the computer.
I would like to limit both these activites as school started back today. How much time do you think is appropriate? I was thinking maybe a hour a day. What do you think? How much time do you allow?

[Kibbiekat]

Depends. What does she have going on besides school?

[Momma_bear]

I always allowed my kids to do what they wanted after they had done what they needed to do when they were in elementary school. They had a lot going on (hebrew school, music lessons, sports practices) so that between school work and the other stuff they didn't really have all that much totally free time.

If your daughter has a lot of stuff going on besides school you might not really need to limit her that much. If she has a lot of free time you probably do need to set some limits.

[germaine2626]

Originally Posted by nikkiheaven

Over the summer, my 9 year old was introduced to FaceTime. This summer she has spent quite a bit of time FaceTiming her BFF (we moved to a different city) and playing games on the computer.
I would like to limit both these activites as school started back today. How much time do you think is appropriate? I was thinking maybe a hour a day. What do you think? How much time do you allow?

It really depends on her activities and her schedule.

One 9 year old may get home from school at 3 PM and finish 30 minutes of homework and then have several hours of "free time" before her 8:30 or 9 PM bedtime.

Another 9 year old may go to day care afterschool and get home at 6 PM, eat dinner and then have an hour of homework so they have only 30 minutes or so of "free time" before getting ready for bed.

Another child may have sports, or dance lessons or music lessons or two hours of home work every night or all three and have virtually no "free time" at all on some school days.

However, in general, I would say one hour maximum per school day and preferable less. I have heard parents admit to their elementary age child playing video games four or five hours a day on school days (basically all of their waking hours except for school). When a child spends that much time on the computer playing videogames, they are not playing outside, not reading, not doing any hobbies, not doing things like sports or extra lessons, not doing homework, etc, etc.

While we never forbid our children from playing video games during the week, they were often so busy riding bikes, taking dance or music lessons, doing sports, going to scout meetings, playing outside, reading, playing with & caring for pets, etc. that they did not want to spend the time doing that (disclaimer, this was back in the "old days" when videogames were in their infancy).

[HighFlyingBird]

I think an hour is fine. It doesn't matter if they have other things to do. An hour is enough screen time. Period.

[MarkMelter]

Clarification: FaceTime is a video chatting software embedded with most stable release versions of iOS. It is not a "game" in most senses.

[~HecateWhisperCat~]

1 minutes 25 seconds exactly.

[prospectheightsresident]

Originally Posted by Momma_bear

I always allowed my kids to do what they wanted after they had done what they needed to do when they were in elementary school. They had a lot going on (hebrew school, music lessons, sports practices) so that between school work and the other stuff they didn't really have all that much totally free time.

If your daughter has a lot of stuff going on besides school you might not really need to limit her that much. If she has a lot of free time you probably do need to set some limits.

I agree with this, 100%.