Tool 3 of 20

Screen-time budget

Map their day → a realistic daily limit.

Remember

Protect sleep, school, body, and friends — screens get the leftovers.

The skill you're building

Turning a vague limit into a fair number your teen can see the logic of.

Make it yours

Age

Goes by

Phone

Why it matters

A calculator that maps your teen's real day — school, sleep, homework, sports, meals — then shows what's actually left for recreational screens. Instead of guessing or arguing over a vague limit, you start from the time that genuinely exists once life's essentials are accounted for. It reframes screen time as a budget, the way you'd budget money, so the limit feels logical rather than arbitrary. You get a realistic daily number you can both stand behind because you watched it add up.

The tool

A realistic daily recreational-screen limit from how your teen's day actually fills up.

Key points

List fixed commitments first; screen time is the leftover.
Show your teen the math so the limit feels fair.
Budget the whole week, not just school nights.

The science

Behavioral psychology shows that limits feel fairer and stick better when they come from a transparent process rather than a flat decree. Framing time as a finite budget taps the same reasoning people use for money, making trade-offs concrete and easier for a teen to accept. When teens see the math themselves, the limit becomes a shared conclusion instead of a parental edict to push against. Visible reasoning also reduces the sense of unfairness that fuels most screen-time fights.

Watch

▶how to set a daily screen time limit for teens ▶screen time budget for kids and teens

Take it with you

A one-page summary for the fridge — the takeaway, the skill you're building, and the key points.

← Previous How much is okay? Next → Sleep & phone-away time

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