Children’s screen time can be regulated with help from parenting app

SCHOOL holidays are here, and parents face a six-week battle to regulate their children’s screen time. But that’s not the only parenting advice they need.

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ANXIOUS Australian mums and dads have turned into “iParents”, relying on federal government technology to help them raise their children.

Parents in their tens of thousands are downloading a free app that provides advice on how much TV — and what type of programs — their children should be allowed to watch and what type of breakfast they should serve.

And today, the Government will provide advice to parents on how to entertain their children when they get bored.

New data obtained by The Courier-Mail reveals the overwhelming cry for help is in relation to the digital diet of their children, who unlike previous generations have become addicted to iPhones, iPads, laptops and social media.

Since August last year the Leaning Potential app, which is free, has been downloaded almost 120,000 times.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham will today relaunch the app for the school holidays. New content will include basic parenting advice and solutions for bigger problems.

While a generations ago parents would tell their children to get out of the house and don’t come back until dinner, mums and dads today have become so overwhelmed by parenting that they are demanding the most basic help.

The refreshed app will include nine articles on how to entertain children when they get bored over the summer break, how to teach a child with dyslexia to read and how parents can better engage with their children.

Lucy Phillips regulates the iPad time of daughter Annabelle, 3. Pic: Annette Dew

Senator Birmingham said most parents were seeking help about technology.

“Parents have voted with their fingers and are clearly turning to technology themselves to help find the best ways of managing technology in the lives of their children, with the Learning Potential app’s technology sections clearly the most popular,’’ Senator Birmingham told The Courier-Mail.

“We can see from the data that even parents who have grown up with more technology in their lives are eager to get advice they can trust on how to get the right balance of and benefits from the internet, smart devices like iPads and TV in their children’s lives.

“I’ve personally seen how beneficial some literacy and numeracy apps have been with my four and five year old daughters but I also appreciate how challenging it is to prise the iPad from their hands when it’s time to do other things like playing outside or sitting down for dinner.”

Brisbane mum Lucy Phillips said she moderates the online time of her three-year-old daughter Annabelle.

“She watches the iPad for maybe an hour during the day as quiet time, it’s handy when I am doing something like cooking dinner,” she said.

Ms Phillips said she thinks most parents know not to let their children have too much time in front of a screen, but where they struggle is in the strategies to get them to stop.

“It’s hard to know how to stop them; you know they shouldn’t spend too much time but strategies to moderate their usage aren’t completely intuitive,” she said.