By Melissa Meehan
Managing the amount of time your child spends in front of a screen each day is an evolving, growing problem for parents of young children and teenagers.
The latest guidelines suggest most Australian children spend more than the recommended two hours a day glued to a screen – whether that’s television, an iPad, a smart phone or an age-appropriate tablet.
For the first time, the World Health Organisation has this year put out recommendations for children’s screen time, encouraging less than a couple of hours and, ideally, much less.
For many parents, it’s a daily battle constantly trying to remove the ever-present screen from their child’s grip. Many kids would happily watch a show or play a game online for hours if you allowed them to.
It’s quite possibly the biggest challenge for parents in this day and age. It is well-documented that too much screen time can have negative impacts over an extended period of time, such as sleeping problems, a loss of social skills and physical inactivity.
That’s why entrepreneurial Surrey Hills mum of two Kate Curry felt compelled to do something about it.
She had witnessed friends with older children grappling with some serious screen addictions.
Kate thought outside the box – literally.
“As my kids got older and started using tech, I always tried to make sure all of their devices were in the kitchen and never in their rooms,” she explained.
“But I’d find the tech all over the house, and sometimes in the bedrooms, and I felt like I was starting to lose control of where it all was.”
Hiding the gadgets in cupboards didn’t work for long and when the kids would be allowed their iPads or tablets back, the batteries would be flat.
Kate was conscious of keeping the gadgets out of her children’s bedrooms to better manage what they were doing online.
So she came up with an idea to create a tech lock up box with a power board inside.
The first prototype was made in Australia. Since then, it has evolved into today’s inchargebox.
There was some important criteria – Kate wanted it lockable with a power board to clean up the messy cords she’d grown tired of around the house, and it had to look stylish.
She wanted the box to be something you’d be happy to have on your kitchen bench every day.
The inchargebox is descried as a ’stylish, lockable steel tech charging station’ to lock, store and charge up to 10 tech devices once. It comes in Unicorn White, Black Beauty, Valentino Red and Pink Flamingle!
It’s designed to be stored on the kitchen bench or office, or any where people would like to charge and lock their tech in one convenient location. It is great to take to holiday houses or on road trips as you can just pick up the box with all the tech in it and plug it back in at your destination. Only one power cord is needed!
Kate says it also helps set clear boundaries with tech usage and allows parents to take control of the tech clutter.
“The larger inchargebox fits remotes, iPhones, anything you can charge with a USB port and it also fits in a school laptop,” she said.
Parents have also relayed to Kate that they often hear their child’s phone ping late at night, and they’d find them up at 3am responding to a text or scrolling, or on social media.
She said as time goes on, the research is emerging about the highly addictive nature of online games and the apps we all engage in everyday.
“The recommendation is no more than two hours a day for school aged children,” she said.
“There’s a lot of people doing five hours or more – including teenagers.
“Kids are meant to get nine, 10 hours of sleep a night. Lack of sleep has an awful flow on effect .”
The feedback for Kate’s entrepreneurial idea has been incredible. She also donates 10 per cent of all box sales to two charities – oneinfive.com.au & forgetmenot.org.au.
She’s also a finalist in the AusMumpreneur Awards in the Product Innovation category, and has been nominated in the 2020 Telstra Business Women’s awards.
As she says, “people are more important than technology“.
– with Danielle Galvin
GIVEAWAY – WIN AN INCHARGE BOX
We’re giving away a Unicorn White 10 USB port incharge box, valued at $199.
The incharge box is a stylish lockable steel station that charges up to 10 of your devices at once and helps set boundaries with tech usage.
It is compatible with products from Apple, Hisense, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, LG, Kindle and PS4 remotes.
For your chance to win, visit www.stonningtonboroondarakids.com.au
