Agreements in the family
About the use of digital media. Smarter agreements – with the help of research.
The page in brief
- Here are five tips on how the family can have good habits with phones and screens.
- Children do what adults do. Start with your own habits.
- Decide together when the phones should be put away, for example at meals and at night.
- Talk often about what your child does online. Tell your child they can always come to you.
- Fill in the family agreement further down the page.
Five tips for the family
Look at the family’s digital habits
Children do as we do, not as we say. That is why we adults need to lead the way with our own habits. It could mean putting the phone away when we are together, at meals, when we need to focus and when we sleep. A basket or box for phones at home is a good, visible reminder of this.
Look at the whole family’s lifestyle habits
Go through the Mental Health Plate together and make a plan for how our basic needs can be met. Start here: take the quick test together and then fill in the family plan for the slices that need more space.
Use screen time settings to limit the time
If your child has a smartphone, their accounts can be linked to your phone so that you can set limits on their access to different apps at different times. For example, you can make only phone calls and text messages work after 20:00, or limit the time on particular games that tend to eat up time. The Public Health Agency of Sweden recommends limiting the time children and young people spend on digital media. A rule of thumb is that young children aged 2–5 use screens for no more than 1 hour a day, children aged 6–12 no more than 1–2 hours, and young people aged 13–18 no more than 2–3 hours.
Talk about content and behaviour online
As a parent, you are just as responsible for your child knowing how to behave online as offline. Talk regularly and with curiosity about what your child does, watches and follows online, and get to know the platforms your child uses. Practise how your child can recognise suspicious behaviour (grooming) and how they can act if someone writes something mean, and let them know they can always come to you and tell you if something feels uncomfortable. Make it clear that you will help your child, whatever role they had in the situation.
Counter the effects of looking at beauty ideals
It is almost impossible not to compare yourself with what is shown online. Striving for beauty ideals is linked to poorer mental health. To counter the effects of your child comparing themselves with unrealistic beauty ideals, you can:
- limit the time your child has access to the platform that shows such content
- retrain the algorithms by blocking, unfollowing and reporting such content
- help your child reflect critically on such content (who is the messenger, is there a commercial motive behind the message, what would the message look like if the profile were of the opposite sex, and so on)
- show that you value things other than appearance, and do not talk negatively about your own or other people’s looks.
Download the agreements as a PDF
All the material on agreements, both within the family and between families, is available as a PDF. Print it and bring it to the dinner table or the parents’ meeting.
Want to work with this at school?
Det syns inte is a school programme about mental health, the brain and life with screens. It is built on drama films and research, and is used by teachers, mentors and school health teams together with the students. The programme’s website is in Swedish.