As with most lessons, saying one thing and doing another can be confusing.

Especially for little ones. If you’re lecturing your child to get off a screen, you can’t do it with a smart phone in your hand.

Children are creatures of habit and tend to follow suit so make sure you spend time with your children when you are (digitally) switched off and 100 percent present.

The benefits to your child’s emotional development are significant when they are engaging directly with you.

You still own the rule book and until they are paying rent or buying their own smart phones, you have control on when (and what) they access on phones and tablets.

As Dr Michael Carr-Gregg says, you are not your children’s friend, you are their parent so set boundaries. Learn to say no. In the long run, they’ll love you for it – or at least they’ll forget about ever throwing a tantrum when you said no to the eighth episode of Peppa Pig.

If you find setting limits gets harder to enforce once that device is in their hands, the new Foxtel Kids App is smart because it allows you to set and control screen time – anywhere between five minutes and two hours – by automatically switching off at a time that is determined by you.

You can also manage what the kids watch (there’s even no ads) and maintain data limits in the app, too. Clever.

Setting boundaries in terms of the location of screen time can be pretty useful for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it helps set screen time up as a treat, not a given, and something that has to be earned with good behaviour.

Secondly, any adult who’s lost a few hours on Facebook will tell you that screen time can be a pretty anti-social habit so, while you can in these pre-teenage years, encourage screen time to be a family activity.

They can still have quiet time watching a movie, but it’s good for them to do it in a communal space where there’s more chance of you being able to break the trance

Out of sight, out of mind as they say and when your kids are outside interacting with other children or even just playing as kids do, they’ll forget about that iPad game they were playing.

Plus, an active child is a happier child too.

Text: Bauer/Australian Women’s Weekly/ Additional Reporting: Atika Lim