Tools to Help You Manage Your Child's Screen Time

Devices have been ingrained into our everyday lives, as everything is now just one click away. But there’s a cost to this convenience… According to the British Medical Journal, there’s strong evidence to suggest a link between screen time and poorer health conditions, like obesity and depression. It also highlights dangers with regard to behaviour issues and self-esteem. Poorer sleep is something that’s also commonly caused by too much screen time, which can impair a child’s ability to concentrate and hinder their learning.

Health aside, screens can also be a major distraction, giving you endless reasons to procrastinate. Moderation is important but it can be a very slippery slope and before you know it, your child is five episodes into a Netflix binge when they were supposed to be revising! In fact, this is more common than you might think; in a survey of 2,000 families, conducted in 2019, it was found that children aged below 14 spent 23 hours a week on their devices. To put this into perspective, it is recommended that children have between an hour and an hour and a half of screen time a day (which in reality can be hard to administer). 

To help you manage your child’s screen time, we have teamed up with a prep school in St Albans to share our tips and tricks.

Parental Controls - Phones and Tablets

Thanks to the people over at Apple and the designers of Android devices, you can restrict your child’s screen time through their devices themselves. The features essentially create a time-out or ban where their device can no longer be used once they exceed their allocated screen time for the day. 

You can set these on whole devices or individual apps you know that they use to procrastinate. This feature can be activated in the settings of their phone or tablet and should have reports of what they spend their screen time doing. It should then give you the chance to create a password that you can use to unlock all the permissions and override the bans.

Parental Controls - Desktops, Laptops and Consoles

Children, as we know, find ways of getting around almost anything… So we’ve included this section. Laptops and computers are also ones to monitor. Just like phones and tablets, you can manage your child’s screen time through “Google’s Family Link” which is an app that you can download to android devices and Chromebooks to essentially do the same thing. 

For Windows computers and consoles like their XBOX, you’ll find a “family settings” feature that allows you to monitor and manage their usage through their Microsoft account. Other consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PS4 have similar parental control features that give control back to parents.

Internet Protection

While great, parental control features aren’t bulletproof, and some things can slip through the cracks. Internet security apps and packages (such as AVG and McAfee) can give added security. They give you the ability to protect your child from viewing harmful content that lurks on the internet. Apps like these can be downloaded to any tablet, phone, or computer, and they usually offer a free trial. 

These can filter and hide content from malicious and inappropriate sites, while allowing you to see where your child is spending their time online and place screen time limits. You can also access real time reports that highlight the words found in the content that they have been viewing. Apps unfortunately can’t be filtered, which makes this a good in between to use to cover all other bases.

A Schedule

A schedule allows you to manage your priorities online and offline, developing healthier habits over time. Sitting down with your child to evaluate what needs to be done can help them to see how much they have to do in comparison to the time that they have available. It can put things into perspective and help them to manage their screen time better in that sense. You can also allot the time that they can afford to spend on their devices. There are great tools online that you can use to help your child create their own study timetable, like Go Conqr. It helps to set goals and lets you see their progress through useful dashboards.

Reward Systems

Good behaviour should be rewarded and encouraged. To encourage your child to adopt healthier habits without feeling restricted, you can introduce a system that rewards them each time that they do their work and meet their screen time goals. The points when added up can earn them a treat of your choice. While you can have a paper version of this, a digital copy via a tool like Kids Rewards can help you to see the long term benefits it’s had on your child and the progress that they’ve made without losing anything.

How do you manage your child’s screen time? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Find the Best Online Tuition

Education is as big of an investment as any. Extra tuition can give your child the best shot at acing their exams and help them to secure a place at a prestigious independent school. Now, with the availability of online tuition, there are fewer barriers to receiving high quality teaching. You don’t have to worry about getting your child to and from a tuition centre. You have a solution that fits around your busy schedule and their extracurriculars too. Best of all, you can virtually contact some of the greatest tutors in the country! But how do you spot a rookie from an experienced coach? 

To help you find the best online tuition for your child, in preparation for their 11+, we have teamed up with a private school in Surrey to share some of our top tips.

Qualifications

Tutors don’t necessarily need a PGCE so long as they have a passion in their area and are knowledgeable enough to teach others. To find the very best, take a look at the subjects that they’ve studied and where. All of our tutors, or “super tutors” as we call them, are highly educated individuals that come from top universities and carry best-in-class teaching expertise.

Child Protection

Although online, child protection is just as important and an utmost priority of ours. To ensure your child’s safety, be sure to look for someone that is DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) registered. A DBS is a background check that highlights any concerns that you should be aware of and is something that you can check for yourself by requesting one online. Alternatively, you can look for tutors that are a part of The Tutors’ Association, which is the professional body for tutors in the UK. As a part of the membership, tutoring bodies like ourselves must maintain up-to-date, enhanced DBS checks, uphold child protection policies and implement best practices for teaching children.

Testimonials

The results speak for themselves. To understand the capabilities of a tutor, refer to their testimonials and reviews. Many platforms have rating systems in place to allow parents and students to make informed decisions. If they don’t however, social media, website reviews and google reviews are good alternatives. The only downside to Google and social media is that anyone can leave feedback without being a verified customer. 

Take a look at some of our customer reviews below.

Preparation and Experience

A lot of tutors make their resources up as they go along, which means that they’re not designed and optimised for independent study outside of those hours. This restricts students from getting the most out of their tutoring. It also means wasting time to find out what works as children have varying learning needs. The experience we have had at Exam Coach has meant that we have been able to curate resources that are classroom-tested and ready to be delivered. There are no awkward stages to find what works. Everything your child needs are prepared and perfected beforehand.

Feedback 

Feedback is just as important as the teaching itself, especially when it comes to exam preparation, as it’s the most effective method. Good, constructive feedback helps to identify areas for improvement and allows tutors to create unique plans for their students. 

This is something we do in our workshops and courses to give our students the opportunity to address any doubts and confirm what they know. We provide marking and feedback on all homework submitted, creating progress plans as well as praising all excellent work.  To assess a tutoring service, learn about how this is done and how often students can receive feedback.

Look for Any Freebies

Online learning is a big commitment, and any taster sessions will help you and your child to find what works best for them. We run at least one weekly workshop a week to help 11+ students in a style that is similar to our paid courses. There are a few differences as the students of our weekly workshops walk away with a summary of the notes made, whereas those enrolled on to the paid courses benefit from detailed notes for each session. Weekly workshops are just £15 for 45 minutes of tuition.

Our free taster class sizes are larger (up to 100 attendees) while our courses typically have far less students. You can learn more about these differences by heading clicking the link below.

Well Versed in The Examiner’s Mark Scheme

Exams are kind of like games. You know exactly what can come up and it’s just a matter of revising the answers (content). Examiners' reports give you a heads-up on how to score points and what exactly they're looking for. A good tutor will know this like the back of their hand and will be able to provide their students with exemplar answers to teach them the best practices to secure top grades. This is something that we help our students with through regular testing to ensure that they know exactly what they need to do in their 11+ exams.

Likeability 

You certainly don’t need to like your teacher to do well but having a friendly and personable teacher helps to make the process easier. It makes learning more interesting, it is easier to engage and talk about your concerns. Meeting prior or having a free session can help your child to get to know their tutor better.

Want to discuss your child’s tuition further?

Click the button below to chat to James on WhatsApp or contact us using the form below.

We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Did you find this article helpful? Let us know in the comments below