✨Comment AGREEMENT for a fillable Family Media Plan you can do with your child.✨ My kids get a lot of screen time. They really do. But we have agreements and limits in place because as a peds ophthalmologist, I want them doing other things than just passively consuming information and I want to protect their eyes. But, we all do what we need to survive. There have been many days when my kids were young when I needed to get dinner on the table or clean and they were given more time than the recs. Such as when my daughter is sick and is at the office with me. Why does it matter? There IS a link between near work and nearsightedness (needing glasses to see far away, also called myopia). Near work includes reading, writing, and yes...screen time. So it’s not necessarily that anything about a screen is worse, but more likely simply the distance that children tend to hold their Switch, iPads, iPhones that’s impacting their vision. The American Association of Pediatric Ophthalmologists & Strabismus and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend the following guidelines: 0-2 years old: No screen time for kids under 2 years old (yup, even educational content) other than FaceTime, this includes educational content 2- 5 years old: No more than 1 hour/day of supervised screen time. >5 years old: Create a family media plan for children older than 5 years old. Something you all agree upon that works for your family. Helpful tips: 1. As much as possible, co-watch programs with your child, airplay or use your TV to stream instead of giving them a device, especially if they are younger. 2. Time spent outdoors has been shown to be protective against nearsightedness. So balance time spent reading or on screens with time outdoors. 3. Get your kids to take breaks every 20 minutes, following the 20-20-20 rule - every 20 minutes, take a 20 second break where you look at an object 2