Screen time doesn’t have to be sedentary
About this resource
This article explores how parents and carers can use digital technologies to encourage young children’s participation in physical activities.
Age range for this resource
For parents, carers, and educators of children aged 12 months to 5 years.
Goal of this resource
To encourage young children to be physically active by inspiring excitement about moving their bodies.
To provide opportunities for young children to engage in physical activities based on their media interests.
To support young children’s physical development relating to bone and muscle strength, heart and lung health, and coordination skills.
How might educators use this resource?
Share this article with colleagues. Think about how your service uses technologies with children to promote physical activity. Use the key messages and ideas in this article to encourage children to move their bodies and engage in energetic play. Australian guidelines recommend that young children are active for at least three hours a day.
How might families use this resource?
Read this article to understand how screens can support your child to engage in fun physical activities. Try out some of the evidence-based suggestions to get your child moving and active. Australian guidelines recommend that young children are active for at least three hours a day.
How might organisations use this resource?
Provide a link to this article in your newsletter or communications with families. Suggest that this article provides evidence-based ideas to get young children moving and increase physical activity when using screens.
What learning might we see?
Young children and families understanding how to use screens to inspire off-screen physical activities at home and in their communities.
Practices
Reinforcing
Children and trusted adults record children participating in physical activity and re-play footage to support and build skill development and receive encouragement from others for physical activity.
Engaging
Children and adults use devices to engage children in physical activity, including audio/video for dancing, yoga, outdoor activities, and/or use device functions such as maps or timers to enhance opportunities for movement.
Launching
Adults capitalise on children’s media interests to launch children into physically active play to transition from screen viewing or to foster non-digital play.
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., Children confidently explore and engage with social and physical environments through relationships and play).
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., Children co-use and collaborate with others when using digital technologies).
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 support and build children’s skills to participate and contribute to group play and projects; Educators use digital technologies to find answers to questions and document discoveries).
Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children become strong in their social, emotional, and mental wellbeing (e.g., Educators collaborate with children to document their achievements and share their successes with their families).
Children become strong in their physical learning and mental wellbeing (e.g., Children participate in physical play, dance, drama; Educators plan for and participate in energetic physical activity with children, including dance, drama, fundamental movement skills, and games; Educators discuss and model appropriate use of digital technologies and discuss how to keep children safe online with children and families).
Children are aware of and develop strategies to support their own mental and physical health and personal safety (e.g., Educators discuss aspects of posture, and other health related age-appropriate digital practices with children; Educators provide a range of active and restful experiences throughout the day and support children to make appropriate decisions regarding participation).
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity (e.g., Educators model inquiry processes, including wonder, curiosity, and imagination, try new ideas and take on challenges; Educators create responsive learning environments that promote shared sustained thinking).
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 explore the purpose and function of a range of tools, media, sounds, and graphics; 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., Children engage with technologies and media for fun and social connection; Educators teach skills and techniques and encourage children to use technologies to explore new information and represent their ideas; 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 3: Physical Environment (e.g., Resources, materials, and equipment allow for multiple uses, are sufficient in number, and enable every child to engage in play-based learning).
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.
Principle 5: People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.
Principle 8: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
Explore More
If these ideas are new to you, explore these related resources:
Using screen time and digital technology for physical activity: Children and pre-teens
This Raising Children Network article and short video (1:29 minutes duration) describe how screen time doesn’t need to mean sitting time and provides suggestions for how to use digital technologies to encourage children’s participation in physical activity.
This ABC Kids collection of videos features various programs encouraging young children to move, sing, and dance.
For more ideas, explore these related resources:
Playing with balls: Ideas for children
This Raising Children Network short video (1:22 minutes duration) discusses ideas for using balls as an open-ended toy for children, using a variety of balls for catching and kicking, and for imaginative play.
This Playgroup WA article encourages parents and carers to use boxes with young children in ways that support their language and physical development and engagement in pretend play.
If you would like to read some research, explore these related resources:
Bland, V. L., Heatherington-Rauth, M., Howe, C., Going, S. B., & Bea, J. W. (2020). Association of objectively measured physical activity and bone health in children and adolescents: A systematic review and narrative synthesis. Osteoporosis International, 31(10), 1865–1894. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-020-05485-y
Radesky, J. S., & Christakis, D. A. (2016). Increased screen time: Implications for early childhood development and behavior. The Pediatric Clinics of North America, 63(5), 827–839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2016.06.006
Wu, C., Xu, Y., Chen, Z., Cao, Y., Yu, K., & Huang, C. (2021). The effect of intensity, frequency, duration and volume of physical activity in children and adolescents on skeletal muscle fitness: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(18), Article 9640. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189640