School psychologist urges summer routines to cut children's screen time

School psychologist Kelly Ann Brown Campbell is urging parents to plan ahead so children stay mentally engaged this summer instead of spending the break glued to phones and tablets.

Speaking on parents' struggle to pull youngsters outdoors, she agreed that boredom often drives screen use and that real-world experiences must compete with devices. She recommended booking organised activities before the holidays begin — sports, robotics, chess, school summer programmes and the like — both to keep children active and to ease the load on working parents.

Cost remains a barrier. Summer camps and events can be expensive, she said, and that hurdle is not always easy to clear. Planning helps, and so does looking past privately run options. Public bodies often offer cheaper or sliding-scale programmes. She pointed to summer sessions once run by the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library — known as the Tom Redcam Library — and to programmes at the Junior Institute on East Street as lower-cost alternatives that still give children strong experiences.

On limits, Brown Campbell cited American Academy of Pediatrics guidance of roughly one to two hours of recreational screen time a day for older children, and less for toddlers. Prolonged close-up viewing can strain eyes that were not built for small screens, she said. Heavy device use can also weaken sustained attention, leaving children used to constant novelty and less able to stick with one task. Screens do not cause ADHD, she stressed, but may intensify some symptoms. Reduced face-to-face conversation can leave children socially awkward, while social media's polished images have been linked in research — especially among adolescents — to depression, anxiety, damaged confidence and online bullying.

Her practical advice for the break is straightforward: spend time with children when possible, involve relatives, play games together and watch programmes as a shared activity rather than handing over a tablet unsupervised. She described a friend with three boys — about one, six and eight — who mapped a daily timetable of age-appropriate chores, reading and scheduled screen slots. Building that kind of structure, she said, turns entertainment into a limited part of the day instead of the default, and models healthier habits for adults as well.