How can technology help kids transition away from screens calmly?
About this resource
This video presentation explores how parents and carers can best support children with technology transitions. Technology transitions involve moving children away from using technologies to non-digital activities.
Age range for this resource
For parents and carers of children aged 18 months to 5 years.
Goal of this resource
To encourage young children’s enjoyment of non-digital activities.
To promote development of young children’s emotional self-regulation.
How might educators use this resource?
Use the practices explained in this video presentation to support young children with transitioning smoothly from screen-based activities to non-screen activities at your service.
How might families use this resource?
Watch this video presentation and explore some of the ideas to help your child transition smoothly away from using technologies to non-digital activities.
How might organisations use this resource?
Provide a link to this video presentation in your regular communication to families. Highlight how young children often struggle to transition away from using technologies to other non-digital activities. Explain to families that there are strategies to help parents and carers support young children to transition away from screen-based activities to non-screen activities.
What learning might we see?
Young children and families understanding how to approach technology transitions in calm ways that reduce frustration and tantrums.
Practices
Strategising
Adults pre-plan approaches to support children with moving from screen-based activities to non-screen activities, such as providing time limits, acknowledging, distracting, offering choices and decision-making opportunities, and following routines.
Singing
Adults specifically employ the use of singing with children to break engagement with screen-based devices.
Inspiring
Adults and children share digital content to initiate non-screen activities, such as searching for active play ideas, craft, cooking, or developing new physical activity interests.
Area
Health and Wellbeing
The way that young children interact, engage with, and experience digital technologies can have implications for health and wellbeing. This includes their physical activity, posture, vision, sleep, and emotions.
Connection to relevant standards
Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022)
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
Children feel safe, secure, and supported (e.g., Educators design and use routines and rituals to support smooth and effective transitions).
Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience, and agency (e.g., Educators provide children with strategies to make informed choices about their actions, interactions, and behaviours).
Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy, and respect (e.g., Educators model care, empathy, and respect for children, colleagues and families; Educators enable children to participate in decision-making that affects them).
Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens (e.g., Educators plan opportunities for children to participate in meaningful ways in group discussions and shared decision-making about rules and expectations).
Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children become strong in their social, emotional, and mental wellbeing (e.g., Educators model positive self-talk to support self-regulation during times of stress; Educators listen and respond empathically when children communicate their distress, fears, or frustrations; Educators talk with children about their emotions and responses to events with a view to supporting their understandings of emotional regulation and self-control).
Children become strong in their physical learning and mental wellbeing (e.g., Children participate in physical play, dance, drama; Educators provide ample opportunities and resources for gross motor and movement experiences in both indoor and outdoor learning environments).
Children are aware of and develop strategies to support their own mental and physical health and personal safety (e.g., Educators engage children in experiences, conversations, and routines that promote healthy lifestyles and good nutrition).
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another (e.g., Educators scaffold children’s understanding of how skills and ideas can be transferred to other activities through conversation and questions).
Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies, and natural and processed materials (e.g., Children experience the benefits and pleasures of shared learning explorations, investigations, and imaginary play scenarios; Educators select and introduce appropriate tools, technologies, and media and provide the skills, knowledge, and techniques to enhance children’s learning).
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts (e.g., Children view and listen to printed, visual, and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments, and/or questions).
Children use digital technologies and media to access information, investigate ideas, and represent their thinking (e.g., Educators integrate technologies across the curriculum and into children’s multimodal play experiences and projects; Educators encourage collaborative learning about and through technologies between children, and children and educators).
National Quality Standard (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2019)
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice (e.g., Educators are deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their decisions and actions; Educators respond to children’s ideas and play and extend children’s learning through open-ended questions, interactions, and feedback; Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions that influence events and their world).
Quality Area 2: Children’s health and safety (e.g., Each child’s wellbeing and comfort is provided for, including appropriate opportunities to meet each child’s need for sleep, rest, and relaxation; Healthy eating and physical activity are promoted and appropriate for each child).
Quality Area 5: Relationships with children (e.g., Responsive and meaningful interactions build trusting relationships which engage and support each child to feel secure, confident, and included).
National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018)
Principle 3: Families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing.
Explore More
If these ideas are new to you, explore these related resources:
Tantrums: Why they happen and how to respond
This Raising Children Network article provides information about what tantrums are and how to handle them.
Managing screen time: Strategies for children 3–11 years
This Raising Children Network article discusses strategies for managing screen time, family rules, routines, tips for transitions, and child choice.
For more ideas, explore these related resources:
Songs through the day – Toddler
This Playgroup WA article provides ideas about how to use songs to make daily tasks fun, with a collection of song lyrics for toddlers.
This Playgroup WA article encompasses a large collection of ideas for fun and creative craft ideas including kinetic sand, rainstick bottles, hand puppets, growing seeds, alien plate art, and vegetable pictures.
If you would like to read some research, explore these related resources:
Hiniker, A., Suh, H.-J., Cao, S., & Kientz, J. A. (2016). Screen time tantrums: How families manage screen media experiences for toddlers and preschoolers. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 648–660. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858278
Scott, F. L. (2022). Family mediation of preschool children’s digital media practices at home. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(2), 235–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1960859