Our screen plan

The sheet

A family agreement made with your child: where the devices go at night, the times with no screens (the adults keep them too), what your child does if something online upsets them, and when you will look at it again.

To fill in together · A4 · One page · PDF, 47 KB

How it helps

A plan your child has helped to make is one they are more likely to keep, and it feels fair to them if the adults keep it too. It also tells your child, in writing, that they won’t be in trouble for telling you when something online upsets them, which makes it more likely that they’ll keep telling you.

How to use it

1. Sit down together at a calm time, and ask what your child thinks is fair before you say what you think.
2. Fill in where the devices sleep at night, the times with no screens for everyone, and who your child tells if something online upsets or worries them. Let them write some of it.
3. Sign it, all of you, and put it up. Keep to the grown-ups’ side of the plan.
4. Look at it again on the date you chose, and give your child a bigger say each time.
5. If your child tells you about something they saw, stay calm, thank them, and work out together what to do. The foot of the sheet says what to do that day if it suggests that someone is trying to harm your child, has asked them for pictures or personal details, or has asked to meet them, or if it involves a sexual image of a child.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with Screen Time and Your Child’s Online World.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.