My son’s screen time has gone up – his school is to blame

Guiding my seven-year-old son, Leo, through squat jumps and wall presses, I couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous it was.

Normally, this technique was reserved for post-gaming sessions – to help him regulate his emotions and ‘come down’ from the digital dopamine high that comes with playing an hour of Super Mario on his Nintendo Switch.

But increasingly, I’ve found myself having to deploy it after he spends 30 minutes learning his times tables through an educational application. 

It’s not that he finds maths particularly enthralling, rather, it’s the fast paced and highly addictive platform that the work comes on that gets him riled up. And as a parent I have to wonder, is it really necessary for homework to be done on an app?

Though it’s been a long time coming, apps are fast becoming the way of the world and are now required for almost everything.

Parents at my son’s school are now required to use apps to report absence, pay for dinner money, manage trips and to sign consent forms.

But it’s not just the parents that are affected.

Leo also currently has three apps for homework – one for his times tables, another for broader maths and one for spelling – all of which use timers and pit him against his peers.

I understand that, since Covid, schools have massively upped their game with online learning and I can see that doing things this way may be tempting. 

Not only does it lessen the load for our bogged down teachers but it probably makes homework easier and more appealing to some kids. Not to mention it’s more eco-friendly. 

But surely it shouldn’t then be a surprise to learn that kids are becoming dependent on smartphones?

They are growing up in a heavily digitalised world. For years they’ve watched their own parents battle with smartphone addiction while at the same time being told they should limit their usage and be screen-free as much as possible. It’s confusing.

We simply can’t be calling for a ban on smart phones for under 16s while simultaneously making it so that kids are unable to even complete their schoolwork without using an app.

Admittedly, Leo’s school suggests that homework is kept to a minimum of around 45 minutes a week, but due to the addictive nature of these games and the competitive element, it often leads to longer time tapping away.

Usually that means, after school, I’ll find him sitting, face glued to a screen, feeling the pressure to perform.

The stress that these sorts of games – educational or not – can put on our children’s brains can be immense and can cause them to feel upset or frustrated and very irritable. And that’s not how I want my child to feel about anything, let alone his schoolwork.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to tackle smartphone addictions, and social media in particular needs a higher minimum age to use, as it is a huge part of the problem. But we can’t expect this problem to fix itself if we’re giving mixed messages.