Today I want to address the pressing issue of managing children’s digital device use and offer valuable advice to parents seeking to establish effective boundaries. We’ll shed light on the potential pitfalls of excessive screen time – from eye strain to fatigue – and underscore the heightened vulnerability of children due to their less-developed protective eye pigments against blue light. I advocate for a thoughtful approach rooted in negotiation when discussing digital device limits with kids. Enjoy the show!

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Hello, everyone. It’s Dr. Sam. I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberne.com.

Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the episode today. So I want to target parents. I also want to target children, and this has to do with digital devices. And the topic of the podcast is how to set boundaries, digital device boundaries for kids. This is a constant fight that goes on in probably every household. Kids just want to use their screens all day, and parents are really upset that kids are spending so much time staring at their screens, either playing video games or even just schoolwork.

Recently, I was visiting a school and I was doing some consulting, and every classroom I went in, the kids were on their iPad, learning through their digital devices. So we can’t fight it. They’re definitely here. But what’s the research? What’s my clinical experience and how to navigate this conversation? And what is it that we can do to negotiate with our kids? How to set boundaries with digital devices.

So a conservative, mainstream publication this was put out by the American Optometric Association came out and said that, yes, children are at a higher risk of eye strain, eye fatigue, maybe even retinal damage from looking at their digital devices. There was an article that was published a long time ago, 1962, in the Investigative Ophthalmology Journal, and they were studying the difference between children’s lenses in the eye versus adults.

And what the researchers found is that children do not have the pigment developed that deflects the damaging blue light. So this means that. Adults do have this pigment inherently in the lens, but it doesn’t develop till later on in a child’s life. And so young children, school age children, they don’t have this pigment. This means that the blue light can absorb more deeply through the lens to the retina, therefore creating the potential of more retinal damage.

So the American optometric association also wrote in this publication that kids have a higher risk of developing headaches, blurred vision, and eye strain from staring at digital devices. The AOA also said that children may have a disruption in their circadian rhythms which affects their sleep cycle. Now, my clinical practice, what I have seen is kids love the digital devices.

They can’t get enough of it. It creates kind of an addictive focus for them. But at the same time, I’m seeing more kids with blurred vision at distance, red eyes, headaches, eye strain, avoidance of reading. And I think it is related to all the screen time that kids are doing so in being able to negotiate. This is setting boundaries, digital device boundaries. With kids, I think it comes down to a couple of things.

Number one, when you’re communicating or negotiating with your child, it’s better if you don’t take an authoritative approach like the parent says, it’s my way or the highway. I like to find the hot button with kids. What are their goals and objectives? What do they like to do besides digital devices? Or maybe it’s some goal that they’re going for.

They want to buy something or they want to go somewhere. So I like to ask them what are some of their goals and objectives in the bigger picture? And then once I have that information, I know what their hot button is. I can then begin to discuss this digital device conversation as it relates to their lifestyle homework, sports, travel, seeing friends.

And what I like to do with a digital device conversation is say, look, I can give you an hour a day of your screen time, especially if it’s video games or watching a TV show or a movie, but an hour is about the limit. And then on the weekends, maybe what we could do is if you get your homework done, if you’re cleaning up your room, if you’re taking care of your responsibility abilities, maybe what we can do is give you 2 hours.

But we split the. Time up. And so it takes this negotiation with your child to say, look, this particular activity that you like to do is really hard on your eyes and I want you to be able to do it. I know you get some pleasure, I know you enjoy it, but I also want you to do some other things as well. And it does get to be like an addictive behavior.

Just like when we eat sugar and then the doctor says, oh, we want you to stop eating sugar, and you go into this strong emotional reaction. I’ve had this many times with kids when they say their favorite food is laced with sugar, and I say, well, maybe we need to reduce it, there’s this strong emotional reaction.

No, I can’t do this. So the point is that

with the computer, with the screens, you have to kind of press into what their emotional reaction is going to be. And you have to manage it. You have to give them a say in it, listen to them, hear them out. And again, it becomes a negotiation where your goal is the end game is to limit it and get them to do other things besides just staring at their screens.

The other thing that you can do is you can put some screen protectors on the digital device. One of the companies I’ve been working with is called Safe Sleeve, and they have some wonderful blue blockers that you can put on your phones, your tablets, your computers, or blue blocking glasses. That would be another option as well.

So at least you’re getting your child to do that. If you take them to a holistic eye doctor, sometimes the doctor will prescribe low plus lenses. We call these developmental lenses. So the combination of the low plus with the blue blockers relaxes the visual system, but it blocks the damaging blue light.

So the bottom line is, number one, they need protection. Number two, you need to limit their screens, and number three, make sure they get outside into the natural sunlight, especially in the morning. That’s one of the best things that you can do for them. Studies have shown that kids who spend more time outside in the sun have a lower incidence of myopia or they reduce their myopia.

So there’s something to be said of being outside in open space, in natural light. We spend so much time with our artificial lights, whether it’s school, institutions, even our homes perhaps, that we need to get out into the natural sunlight. That’s a great antidote. And of course, if you can get them to eat the colorful vegetables and antioxidant foods, make sure they’re getting some good supplementation, some good fish oil or healthy fats.

These are all things that if you can get it in their diet, that’s helpful as well. And eliminate or reduce the sugary foods. So good luck, parents. It’s a tough one, I’ve been there. And I’ll have more to say as we move along. So thanks for your interest today. That’s our show. Until next time, everyone. Take care.

Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.