Q: We struggle with the amount of screen time we should allow our children. They scream for more and more. Our 12-year-old daughter's peers are online, instant messaging and texting "all the time." What is a reasonable time frame and limit? We want to allow her to "fit in" but not become "addicted." It seems so addicting to always be "online."

A: My 2005 research with middle-grade students for my book, "Growing Up Too Fast" (Rodale, 2005), found boys spending five times and girls four times as many hours on screens as on homework. Now that cell phones and texting have been added to the screen scene, I expect the time commitment to screens has increased further and, yes, that is too much.

Today's technology is great and fun, too, but parents need to set limits so that kids eventually learn to set their own limits. Also, parents should model setting screen limits for themselves. For starters, consider turning off cell phones while driving, during meals and at family fun times. Be sure to limit TV viewing to favorite family shows, daily news and special sports events. Postpone e-mailing and Web browsing until after kids are in bed. At least, you'll be a role model of reasonable self-discipline.

In general, I recommend no more than two hours of total screen time a day. Figuring out how to count screen time when you include texting and cell phones will be challenging. Some parents don't allow TV on weeknights at all, and that decreases the complaints and monitoring. If your kids are doing texting during homework time and past bedtime, you should collect phones for the night and return them when they're ready for school in the morning. Cell phones are not allowed in school, but they can certainly be used on the route to and from school. Conversation works better if you're driving your children, but texting works well to keep long bus rides interesting.

Time is not the only issue for screen limits. The location of screens is also important. I hope your daughter doesn't have a TV or Internet access in her bedroom. Screens absolutely belong in family rooms where parents can monitor, at least in general, what kids are watching. It's isn't about not trusting kids; it is about not trusting predators or TV night programming. Kids can easily be tempted to watch inappropriate material when it flashes on the screen. Pornography can pull them in and predators are very real. Your children absolutely require parental protection.

The social sites are exciting to kids, but please be sure you have their passwords. Let your adolescents know you'll be doing occasional checking. They'll angle for secrecy and will manipulate you by claiming you should trust them. Remind them again that you'd like to, but you can't necessarily trust others who could bully, taunt, tease and use inappropriate language. Let them know your usual guidelines for appropriate language and apply it to social sites as well as at home.

For most kids, daily oversight is not appropriate, but checking every few weeks can assure you that your child is not being pulled into the mire that can sometimes accumulate on a Facebook page. If they understand you're checking from the start, they'll keep a cleaner, safer site, and you'll be able to permit their involvement. Closing down social pages may be necessary if their supposed friends get unfriendly and mean.

As you can see, guidelines aren't easy to enforce and require both reasonable flexibility and paradoxically, as well as firm boundaries. Parents everywhere are struggling with this issue. Friendliness without screen addiction is becoming a more difficult combination for kids today.

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Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.