Screen time calculator and a family media agreement to print
It will not tell you that nine-year-olds get ninety minutes, because that number does not survive a wet Saturday. It gives a shape for the age, then builds the agreement around your household.
Parents arrive at this subject looking for a figure and leave with an argument, because the figure was never the thing in dispute. What is actually being negotiated is when screens happen, what they displace, and whether the rules apply to everyone. This tool builds that instead.
Build the agreement
Add any of these to the agreement
Every age band and its starting rules
Short sessions, shared, never alone in a room
At this age the content and the company matter far more than the clock. A predictable pattern (one programme, together, at the same point in the day) does more than any number of minutes.
- Screens are used in shared rooms, with an adult nearby.
- No screens in the hour before bed.
- No app store access and no purchases.
- These rules apply to the adults in this house too.
A predictable daily shape rather than a negotiated total
Routine does almost all the work in this band. Decide when screens happen rather than for how long, and keep the endless kind of content out; that is the part with no natural stopping point.
- Screens live in shared rooms.
- Screens are off at the table and in the hour before bed.
- Every purchase goes through a grown-up.
- Contact is limited to people the household knows.
- These rules apply to the adults in this house too.
Per-app limits, with the always-allowed list set
A single daily total treats a homework app and an autoplaying feed as the same minute. Be generous with what you do not mind and strict with the one thing that never ends.
- The phone charges overnight outside the bedroom.
- Screens are off at the table.
- Every purchase goes through a grown-up.
- Telling an adult about anything online never makes the consequence worse.
- These rules apply to the adults in this house too.
Autonomy over the day, in exchange for the overnight rule
Totals become largely unenforceable here and place-and-time rules do not. Trade daytime freedom for the phone genuinely leaving the bedroom, which is the boundary with the clearest evidence behind it.
- The phone charges overnight outside the bedroom.
- Screens are off at the table.
- Purchases are discussed before they happen.
- Telling an adult about anything online never makes the consequence worse.
- These rules apply to the adults in this house too.
Agreed norms rather than enforced limits
By this age the useful conversation is about attention and sleep rather than permission. What still earns its place is the overnight habit and a clear arrangement about money.
- Devices sleep outside the bedroom, everyone’s included.
- Screens are off at the table.
- Money arrangements are agreed in advance.
- These rules apply to the adults in this house too.
Why there is no magic number
Various bodies publish recommended limits and they disagree with each other, largely because a single total cannot distinguish between the activities inside it. A figure also has a practical failure: the moment it is exceeded for a good reason, the whole agreement looks negotiable.
What holds up instead is a shape: when screens happen, where they happen, and what they never displace. That is enforceable by observation, not by a counter nobody trusts, and it does not need renegotiating every time the weather changes.
Four kinds of time that get counted as one
Creating something, connecting with people they know, consuming something they chose, and consuming a feed that refills itself. Only the last of those reliably causes the trouble parents are worried about, and a daily total treats it identically to the first.
The practical consequence is to be generous with the first three and specific about the fourth. Per-app limits are where that becomes possible, and they are the reason a total is the wrong instrument even when the platform offers one.
The clause that gives the agreement authority
Every agreement this tool builds ends with the same line: these rules apply to the adults in this house too. It is there because an agreement that binds only the children is an instruction wearing a document’s clothing, and everyone in the house can see that.
It is also the clause that changes behaviour most, in both directions. Households that adopt it tend to report that the table rule and the overnight rule were harder for the parents than for the children, which is usually the moment the agreement starts working.
Where the technical settings come in
The agreement covers intent; the settings remove the accidental. Set per-app limits instead of a device total, put the always-allowed list to work so a bedtime schedule never blocks the ability to phone you, and apply the overnight schedule on every device that offers one.
Each platform’s exact menu path is on the setup guides, and the fuller reasoning about what to count and what to stop counting is on the screen time page. Between the agreement and one evening of configuration, most of this subject is handled.
Questions about screen time
Why does it not just tell me how many hours?
Because the totals hide the difference that matters. Two hours of building something and two hours of an autoplaying feed are the same number and not the same thing, and a figure that treats them alike produces an argument instead of a plan.
Does the agreement need to be signed?
Signing helps with children roughly between seven and thirteen, mostly because it marks the thing as agreed rather than imposed. Past that age the discussion matters and the signature does not.
What if we break it in the first week?
Expected, and the reason the exceptions clause exists. An agreement that anticipates a wet Saturday keeps its authority on Monday; one with no provision for exceptions gets renegotiated from scratch every few days.
Do the adults really have to follow it?
On place and time, yes, and it is the difference between a house rule and an instruction. Children notice the asymmetry long before they mention it, and an agreement that binds only them is a rule with a different name.
Is the overnight rule that important?
It is the one with the clearest evidence behind it. A phone in the bedroom costs sleep, and lost sleep is what shows up as mood, concentration and school, which is what most parents are actually worried about when they ask about hours.
How do I make it stick technically?
Per-app limits, not device totals, with an always-allowed list for calls, messages and school apps. The exact path for each platform is on the setup guides.