Guidelines tell you a number; real days are messier. Enter your child's age and a typical day, and the planner works out how much recreational screen time fits after sleep, school, homework, activity and family time, when screens should go off, and what a balanced day looks like. You can print the result and put it on the fridge.
The planner treats the day as a budget of waking hours. It first checks that the time between bedtime and wake-up, plus naps, fits the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommended range for your child's age. Then it subtracts the fixed parts of the day: school or childcare, homework, clubs and lessons, and about an hour and a half for meals, washing and getting ready. It then reserves time for physical activity and screen-free play before anything goes to screens.
The recreational screen budget is the smaller of two numbers: what genuinely fits in the remaining time (the planner never gives screens more than a third of leftover free time), and the guideline for your child's age:
Screens-off time is set one hour before bedtime, because evening screen use is linked with later and shorter sleep in children. Read more in Screen Time vs Sleep in Children.
A number of minutes is only part of the picture. The AAP emphasizes what children watch, who they watch with and what screens replace. An hour of video-calling grandparents or building in a creative game is very different from an hour of autoplay videos. Use the budget as a starting point for a family conversation, not a rule to enforce to the minute. Our guide to building a family screen time plan walks through the rest.
It starts from your child's waking hours, takes out school, homework, activities, meals and routines, and protects time for physical activity and screen-free play. The budget is the smaller of what fits in the remaining time and the guideline for your child's age.
The AAP does not set a fixed limit for children 6 and older. The planner uses the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend no more than 2 hours of recreational screen time a day for ages 5 to 17, as a sensible upper anchor.
No. The planner treats schoolwork separately and only budgets recreational screen time such as shows, games, videos and social media.
Screens in the hour before bed are linked to later sleep onset and shorter sleep in children. Many pediatric sleep experts recommend a screen-free wind-down period of about an hour.
No. It is a planning aid based on published guidelines. Every child and family is different; talk to your pediatrician about specific concerns.
More detail on our Sources & Research page. This planner is general guidance, not medical advice.
Kids Screen Time