Active For Life: Easy Habits (tech awareness for kids)

Photo by Robo Wunderkind on Unsplash

The evidence is mounting that overuse of screen time is damaging to children’s health, contributing to anxiety, depression and other problems. Yet “controlling” screen time generally proves counter-productive, generating conflict between children and parents/caregivers.

Active for Life has developed a challenge designed to create new habits around screen time. There is a short video to watch, followed by suggestions to try shown on three posters: Bedtime, Clean Up, and Mealtime, along with a printable easyHabits worksheet to use to identify target habits and measure progress. There is a voluntary follow-up survey to collect information on how effective these ideas have been for your family.

The challenge is based on the book Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything by B.J. Fogg, PhD, founder of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab.

Dr Fogg says that he has learned that there are only three things that will change a person’s behaviour in the long run:

A: Have an epiphany

B: Change your environment

C: Take baby steps

The first (A) is rare and difficult, but (B) and (C) are practical and can lead to lasting change. Tiny Habits focus on small actions that can be done in less than thirty seconds. The process involves seven steps:

·      Pinpoint your outcome

·      Brainstorm behavioural solutions

·      Identify “Golden Behaviours”

·      Find the tiny version

·      Choose your prompt

·      Celebrate!

·      Refine

Starting small, celebrating the new behaviour with positive rewards (like positive relational interaction between child and parent/caregiver), and regular repetition are identified as the keys to success.

Active for Life have applied these principles to behavioural change around screen use for the challenge. The idea is to make the behavioural changes so small that they are easy to do. Once families are familiar with the concept and have experienced successes, the printable worksheet can also be used to adapt the principles to other areas where change is desired.