Raising your niece, nephew, or grandchild in this tribal community is an act of great love, strength, and intentionality. Your relative child may have faced early challenges before joining your household, like being exposed during pregnancy to drugs and alcohol, or experiencing loss, chaos, and neglect in their home.
These hardships affect their behaviors, emotions, brain development, and how they process the world around them. From this perspective, you need tools to help them learn how to manage their screen time and device use in ways that will help them feel safe, grow, and connect.
Tips to Help You Learn to Manage Screen Time
1. Turn Screen Time Into Together Time
Research shows that when kids are with their grandparents, nearly half of that “visiting” time is spent using screens. While screen time may differ when your grandchild lives with you full-time, it still speaks to the significant screen use kids engage in. How we guide them during that use matters!
When you do these two things, you can help this child build emotional regulation skills. You are also building trust.
- Watch with them (“co‑use”): Sit together and talk about what you’re watching. Ask questions like, “What did you find funny?” or “What do you think will happen next?”
- Explain in simple terms (“instructive”): Help them understand a story, a new word, or the feelings of characters.
2. Create Gentle Structure, with Choices
Children affected by traumatic conditions in their earlier lives will thrive when routines feel safe.
- Create several media-free times, like family meals or bedtime, for real conversation or reading. Parenting and media professionals frequently recommend screen-free or media-free zones or timeframes to encourage authentic connection.
- Try to make screen use (phones, tablets, TV, games, etc.) a choice, not the default. Offer two activities that are non-screen first, like playing outside or coloring with little ones, or biking or gardening for the older kids. Then, allow them to choose from those two options before screen time. You can build decision-making skills and reduce resistance when they know screens are “off the table” for now (but not forever).
- Maintain consistent time limits and “house rules.” For example, if you have said they may watch one show after a nap or text with friends for 30 minutes after finishing chores, be consistent with all the kids in the house and with each instance of allowing screen time.
3. Pick Screen Moments That Support Growth
Remember, these screens aren’t just for entertainment — they can be educational and support emotional well-being. For example:
- Choose calm, simple, age-appropriate programs and apps that show healthy relationships or breathe-and-relax routines.
- Use video chats to stay connected with their parents or other family.
- Calmly and quietly guiding them through technical difficulties or when they’ve lost a game can make a difference in their growth and understanding.
4. Be the Calm Leader They Rely On
Many children with prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol or other trauma may find it hard to stay calm or focused. You can be a grounding presence:
- Stay calm during a frustrating game or a text conversation. Step in to hold their hand, rub their shoulder, breathe together, or change activities.
- Use “Let’s try…” language, such as “Let’s try a breathing break before going back to the show.”
- Use screen experiences to name and validate their feelings. “I see that made you mad. Let’s talk about it.”
5. Learn Together About Media
You can reduce tension between you and improve your relationship by building your own technology skills. You also build respect and trust by asking for help.
- Ask a friend or local teen to show you how to set up safe searches or parental controls.
- Use the resources listed in this article to choose apps, shows, or games that fit your child’s age and needs, and your family’s values.
- Make technology time a chance to learn together. Ask your grandchild to teach you about their favorite game, play learning games together, or read online news articles together and discuss them. Find what interests them and join them.
6. Encourage Movement and Creativity
Screens are fine sometimes, but movement also helps children whose brains and bodies need extra support:
- Encourage activity by walking in the park, jumping in the creek, drawing, or crafting together.
- Mix screen breaks with activity. For example, for each ten minutes of gaming, take a stretching or dancing break. And here’s a pro-tip: using a timer for the little ones will keep you from being the bad guy.
7. Build Trust with the Child’s Parents
Maintaining connection with this child’s parents – as long as it’s safe to do so – gives the child a chance to see all the adults who love them working together. The consistency of honoring their parents’ role in their lives can increase the child’s sense of safety.
- Ask the parents for some input around your screentime rules.
- Get the parents’ input on contact with their child. Do they prefer texts, phone calls or video calls? How often?
- Share what you notice: “When we paused last week’s call, I did some deep breathing with them to calm down. Would you like me to teach you what we did? Do you have another idea for how to calm them?”
8. Keep It Gentle and Heart-Centered
Finally, approach the issue of screen time with care and warmth.
- Offer options and give them a voice.
- Keep things positive and strengths-focused. “You chose that show so well!” or “You took a calm-down break, that was brave.”
- Trust your love and intentions toward them. You’re not policing, and they are fortunate to have you guiding them, even if they don’t understand it yet.
Screen Time Doesn’t Have to Be a Battle
Screen time is a sensitive topic for many kids, especially those who haven’t had limits before coming to live with you. However, when you combine gentle structure, shared activities, movement, and understanding, you can avoid battles over devices and help this child build resilience, confidence, and a sense of connection.
Screens can be excellent tools when used wisely. But your love is the most powerful thing they’ll ever watch.