From The Caliph

How to Manage Children’s Screen Time and Social Media Use

Ahmadiyya Khalifa explains how important it is for parents, in today’s digital age, to monitor the programmes their children watch and ensure they do not have excessive screen time.

From The Caliph

How to Manage Children’s Screen Time and Social Media Use

Ahmadiyya Khalifa explains how important it is for parents, in today’s digital age, to monitor the programmes their children watch and ensure they do not have excessive screen time.

August 30, 2024

On Sunday, 2 June 2024, a group of Ahmadi women and girls from Cologne and Bremen, Germany, visited Islamabad, Tilford, UK, and had the honour of an in-person audience with Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the Worldwide Head and the Fifth Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. During the program, the participants were granted the opportunity to ask questions. One lady asked how a mother can safeguard her children from the negative influence of social media, to which His Holiness replied:

One can only try in this regard and make gradual efforts to save them. Parents should give children time and company. Sometimes, mothers hand iPads, tablets or iPhones to children to keep them occupied while they watch programmes on television. Instead of doing this, they should try to make the children understand.

One should also keep an eye that children do not watch programmes that display foul and vulgar things, which can have a negative impact on their upbringing. Parents ought to monitor the programmes their children watch and tell them that they do not exceed one hour of screen time.

In this way, children should be kept in check and disciplined. Moreover, parents should lovingly make them aware of the ill effects, explaining how spending too much time on screens would affect their vision, reduce their concentration levels, and impact their studies. Thus, like this, one should make them understand and befriend them, and they shall understand. Most importantly, parents should pray that Allah protects them from the harmful things of this age.

If one does this, then it is fine. It is not possible to completely prevent children from this. However, one should tell the children that they can watch just for one hour, or otherwise, it will have great harm. In this way, children understand. Many mothers have written to me, sharing that children understood when they explained the matter to them in this manner.