Free tool · Children

Family screen-time agreement maker

Rules made together last longer than rules handed down. Tick the lines that suit your home, add a few in your children’s own words, and print a one-page tech agreement for everyone to sign, grown-ups included. It is free, and nothing you type leaves your device.

Build your agreement

Your children’s stage

If your children are at different stages, choose the youngest and add lines for the older ones.

Where screens go
When screens are on
What we use
Who we talk to, and what we share
Where devices sleep at night
Spending in games and apps

The controls that stop a purchase are on the device, the app store and any games console: most can turn in-app purchases off or ask for a password each time.

If something online upsets us

If anything online makes us feel upset, scared or uncomfortable, we stop, close it and tell a grown-up. Nobody gets into trouble for telling.

This line is always in the agreement.

Grown-ups
When a rule is broken
When we look at it again
Your own lines

Let your children put some of it in their own words.

Signing it

Your agreement

Choose your children’s stage or tick a line, and your agreement will appear here.

Your choices are kept only in this browser on this device. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Why write it down together

A rule your child helped to shape is one they understand. The UK Chief Medical Officers encouraged parents and carers to agree boundaries with children around time on screens and online behaviour, rather than simply impose them, and Childnet describes a family agreement as a way to start that conversation with the whole family. Agreeing together does not mean children set their own limits: you still have the final say. It means they are heard before you decide.

And when a rule is written down, nobody argues about what was said last week.

How to use it

  1. Choose your children’s stage and press “Suggest lines for this stage” for a starting point, or tick lines yourself.
  2. Sit down together and talk each line through. Untick anything that does not fit your family.
  3. Ask your children for a line or two of their own, in their words.
  4. Print it, sign it, and put it somewhere everyone will see it. Look at it again on the date you chose.

The one line that is always in

Every agreement this tool makes says that if anything online is upsetting, your child stops, closes it and tells a grown-up, and nobody gets into trouble for telling. If telling you gets a child into trouble, they will stop telling you, so it is the line to keep even when every other rule changes.

Questions

What should a family tech agreement include?
Keep it to one page and answer six questions: where screens go (and where devices sleep at night), when they are on, which games and apps are fine, who your children can talk to and what is never shared, whether any money can be spent, and what to do if something online is upsetting. Add what happens if a rule is broken and when you will look at it again.
At what age should we make one?
There is no single right age. For the youngest children, screen time is something grown-ups choose and share, so the agreement is mostly for the adults. From the primary school years, children can help write it, sign it and understand the reasons. Teenagers need more say, and the agreement becomes more of a negotiation.
Should the grown-ups follow it too?
Yes. Children notice what adults do far more than what they say. The UK Chief Medical Officers suggested adults lead by example by not using screens excessively in front of children. If phones stay off the dinner table, the grown-ups’ do too.
What if the agreement gets broken?
It will be, and that is when it starts to matter. Ask what happened before you act, use the consequence you agreed in advance, keep it short, and never punish a child for telling you about something that went wrong online. If the same rule keeps breaking, change it at your next review.
Does an agreement replace parental controls?
No. The two work together. Parental controls on the device, the app store and any games console do the technical work, such as turning off in-app purchases. The agreement is the conversation that explains why the settings are there.

Sources

Related