Screen Time for Singapore Children: Limits and a Weekday Plan

Screen time for children in Singapore has two official numbers to plan around, both from the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) updated guidance as the Ministry of Education (MOE) quotes it: less than one hour a day outside school for ages 3 to 6, and less than two hours a day for ages 7 to 12 unless related to schoolwork. MOE adds that unrestricted access to devices should not be allowed. Multiplied over seven days (our arithmetic), the numbers give a ceiling of under 7 hours a week for a five-year-old and under 14 hours for a nine-year-old.

Picture 6.15 pm on a school day. One child still has homework, dinner is not ready, and a tablet has quietly taken over the next half hour. Nobody decided that. This guide turns the official limits into a weekday plan built on four moments (before school, after school, dinner and bedtime), with two worked examples and a one-week tick sheet you can copy.

Is there an official limit for ages 3 to 6 and ages 7 to 12?

Yes, for those two age bands. Grow Well SG is the national health promotion strategy launched jointly by MOH, MOE and the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). Its 21 January 2025 release says MOH updated its Guidance on Screen Use in Children aged 0 to 12 years old, whose key changes include “limiting screen use to less than one hour a day outside of school for children aged three to six years, and less than two hours a day for children aged between seven and 12 years, unless related to schoolwork”. MOE repeated the limits for parents in an EdTalks explainer on 28 March 2025, adding: “Unrestricted access to devices should not be allowed.” The release also says parents should not give children unrestricted access to mobile devices, “or any access to social media services”.

Read the wording carefully before building a plan on it:

• Schoolwork. The exception, “unless related to schoolwork”, follows the 7–12 limit. Neither page states an exception for ages 3–6, and neither says how to count a particular task, so if you are unsure about a school-set task, ask the school.
• Outside school. “Outside of school” is written once, after the 3–6 limit, and the pages do not say whether it also applies to the 7–12 limit. Our reading, not MOH’s wording: this guide counts leisure screen use outside school hours against both limits and keeps schoolwork on its own line. Check it against MOH’s text, which the release says is on MOH’s website.
• Under-threes and teenagers. The pages give no home limit for children under 3 or over 12, although the guidance’s title covers ages 0 to 12. In January 2025 the release said the strategy would focus on children up to 12 “for a start” and be extended to older age groups later.
• MOH’s own page. It could not be opened for this article, so the figures are as MOE reports them. The release says the updated advisory “can be found on MOH’s website”.

For preschools, the release says the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) would adjust its Code of Practice, and that the revised code was due to take effect from 1 February 2025: no screen use for infants up to 18 months, and screens used only for teaching and learning purposes for children aged 18 months to six years. The pages read do not confirm that it took effect, so check with ECDA or your centre. The code concerns preschools; the pages do not say how it counts towards a home limit, so ask your centre what it uses screens for.

On why, the release’s section on purposeful screen use says that, for older children, screen use “displaces other activities, such as sleep, physical activity and interactions with friends”.

How many hours is that over a week?

The limits are daily, so multiply by seven to get the ceiling:

• Age 5: under 1 hour × 7 days = under 7 hours a week (under 420 minutes).
• Age 9: under 2 hours × 7 days = under 14 hours a week (under 840 minutes).

Treat that as seven daily limits added together, not a pool. The pages set the limits per day and do not describe averaging across a week, so this plan never carries minutes from one day to another. Both examples below spend only part of the ceiling, because a limit is not a target.

What do the four weekday anchor blocks look like?

A limit is hard to hold at 6.15 pm if nothing was decided earlier. The plan below, our own suggestion, settles four moments in advance. Move the times to suit your household’s hours.

• Before school: screens out. The morning already has the bag, the bottle and the handover. Our ten-minute evening reset covers those but not screens, which is why this block exists.
• After school: the one planned screen slot, with an end time agreed before it starts.
• Dinner: the table is a device-free zone for everyone, adults included.
• Bedtime: screens finished before the bedtime routine begins. The release names sleep among the activities that, for older children, screen use displaces.

Here are two fictional families. The slot lengths are their choice, not a recommendation of how much screen time suits a child.

Illustrative ledger: a child aged 5 (limit: under 1 hour a day)

• Before school: 0 minutes. Dinner: 0. Bedtime: 0.
• After school: 30 minutes in one slot, with an adult nearby.
• Weekdays: 30 minutes a day, so 2 hours 30 minutes over five days.
• Weekend: 45 minutes on Saturday and 45 on Sunday, so 1 hour 30 minutes.
• Week: 4 hours against a ceiling of under 7, and every day stays under 60 minutes.

Illustrative ledger: a child aged 9 (limit: under 2 hours a day, unless related to schoolwork)

• Before school: 0 minutes. Dinner: 0. Bedtime: 0.
• After school: 60 minutes in one slot, ending before dinner.
• Weekdays: 60 minutes a day, so 5 hours over five days.
• Weekend: 90 minutes on Saturday and 90 on Sunday, so 3 hours.
• Schoolwork on a screen: written on its own line and not counted, following the exception in the guidance.
• Week: 8 hours against a ceiling of under 14, and every day stays under 120 minutes.

The pages do not say how to count a video call with a grandparent or a show left on in the background. Decide once what goes in your ledger, and count it the same way every day.

How do you use the one-week tick sheet?

Copy the lines below into a notes app, or draw seven rows on paper for the fridge. Tick a block when it went as planned: a screen-free block stayed screen-free, or the slot ended on time. Write the actual minutes at the end of the day, and replace the planned slot with your own number, below the daily limit for your child’s age.

• Mon · before school ☐ · after school ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Tue · before school ☐ · after school ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Wed · before school ☐ · after school ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Thu · before school ☐ · after school ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Fri · before school ☐ · after school ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Sat · screen slot ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Sun · screen slot ☐ (___ min) · dinner ☐ · bedtime ☐ · day total ___ min
• Week · add the seven day totals: ___ min. Ceiling: under 420 minutes at age 5, under 840 at age 9.

At the end of the week, look for the block that failed most often, such as after school on Fridays. Change the plan for that block, not the limit. If you already run a weekly sort, the tally is a short addition to the weekly family admin routine. Decide what happens when the slot ends, too: a library book is one option, as in our guide to a library habit that survives a busy week.

What does MOE suggest parents do at home, and how does that fit the plan?

MOE’s Cyber Wellness page, last updated 5 December 2025, lists four things parents can do to help a child stay safe and have positive experiences online: activate parental controls on your home devices, model good digital habits for your child, set ground rules for internet use, and navigate the internet together to understand their usage. The page does not say how. Here is one way to carry them in the plan, and these are our suggestions, not MOE’s:

• Parental controls: set them up on the device used in the after-school slot before the week starts.
• Model good habits: adults follow the dinner rule too, with phones in one place.
• Ground rules: the four anchor blocks are the rules. Write them beside the tick sheet and go through them with your child.
• Navigate together: sit in on part of the after-school slot once or twice a week and ask what your child is watching or playing.

For more help, the EdTalks page says parents who need more advice may refer to the “Parenting for Wellness” resource jointly developed by MOE, MSF and the Health Promotion Board (HPB), and to the MOE Parent Kit website. It also says School Counsellors in schools are trained to manage addictive behaviour and to identify at-risk students; it does not say how parents reach them. Those resources were not reviewed here. For more routines, see the routines topic.

Common questions