A step-by-step program built by two clinical psychologists. Get up to speed on what the research actually shows, see where your own child sits, learn how to manage screens in your home, learn how to deal with common issues and dangers, and build a screen plan you can hold. Built on the same evidence-based methods we use with families in our clinics.
Start the Program One-time payment. Start tonight.The figures below are not opinions. They come from national surveys and peer-reviewed studies of tens of thousands of children.
Drag the slider. These are findings from large national studies, shown as they were published: as associations across thousands of children, not predictions about any one child.
These figures describe associations found in cross-sectional and survey research (they cannot prove cause and effect for any individual child). Risk also depends heavily on what screen time displaces: sleep, movement, friendships, and family connection. Protecting those four is what a screen plan is for.
Sources: CDC National Health Interview Survey (Teen), 2021-2023; Twenge & Campbell, Preventive Medicine Reports, 2018; Pew Research Center, April 2025; Common Sense Media Census, 2025; Australian eSafety Commissioner, 2025.
A timer app and one clear conversation usually hold for two or three weeks, and then screen use drifts back to roughly where it started. That happens in most homes, including homes where the parents are consistent and the rules are fair. The apps and games your child is using are built and continually tuned by large teams whose job is to hold attention on the screen, and one rule agreed once at the kitchen table is not enough on its own to counter that.
What does hold is the method we use with families in clinic. You work out first how screens are actually functioning for your particular child, because the same two hours a day means something different in different homes. Then you change the structure around screens so that the limit is carried by the routine rather than by you enforcing it every evening. That sequence is what the five modules take you through.
Five modules. Twenty-nine lessons. Eight video walkthroughs. Most lessons are a tool you use, not a video you watch.
A thirty item assessment across eight areas gives your child a screen profile, so the targets, the plan and the scripts you get afterwards are chosen from their results rather than from general advice.
What screens actually do to a developing brain, and why they are so hard for a child to put down, in plain language you can use in your own house.
What to say when the answer is no, when the negotiating starts, and when it gets loud. De-escalation lines tested in real clinical work.
Six intervention targets, worked through one or two at a time in a set order, so the changes hold instead of you changing everything at once and losing all of it in the first week.
A dashboard that tracks which lessons you have done, stores your child's profile and results, and shows you the next lesson to open. Nothing is sent to us; it all stays in your own browser.
Lessons run three to twelve minutes, and almost every one gives you an interactive tool to work through rather than a video to sit and watch.
The decisions parents get most stuck on get a module of their own, rather than a paragraph near the end of a general course.
A readiness framework rather than an age. You work through it for your own child and come out with an answer you can explain to them, and to yourself.
What to put in place before you hand it over, and how the handover conversation goes. A simulator gives you a thirteen year old with a new phone and everything switched on, then plays out a year.
Giving a child a phone and letting them onto social media are two different choices. We cover the risks honestly, how to judge whether your child is ready, and how to introduce a first platform slowly rather than as one yes or no.
Ten tools compared, a recommender for the devices you own and the age of your child, and setup that takes an evening rather than a weekend.
This is the actual First Year simulator from Module 5, running here on this page. Set up the phone, then play the first two months. The other ten are inside the program.
The First Year: a thirteen year old, a new phone, everything switched on
Runs right here in your browser. Your play is not sent anywhere.
Complete the guided assessment and get your child's screen profile in about five minutes.
Learn why screens hook your specific child, then use the decision tree to narrow the options down to the one or two changes worth making first.
Follow the phased plan, use the scripts, and let the new routine settle so screens stop being a daily negotiation.
Dr. Danny O'Rourke and Dr. Jennifer Tininenko have spent their careers treating children and adolescents with evidence-based care. They built the Screen Balance Program because the families in their clinics kept asking the same question: what do we actually do about screens?
Read about our training, our clinics and why we built the program.
Meet the psychologistsThe Screen Balance Program is an educational course built by two clinical psychologists. It is not therapy, and no course can diagnose or treat a mental health condition.
If your child is already struggling, the program is designed to sit alongside professional support, never to replace it. Many of the families we see in clinic work on screen balance as one part of a bigger picture.
The families who end up settled about screens are not the ones with more willpower. They are the ones who wrote down what the rules are, agreed them with their child, and then let the routine carry them.
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