January 14, 2025 / SafetyNet®

Automated Schedules

As parents and caregivers, we know that maintaining consistent schedules is essential for children of all ages—including teens, who often have schedules just as busy as ours. Our family routines should also include our children’s device usage. Creating healthy habits around screen time at a young age will set them up for success now and in the future.

While schedules give little ones a sense of security in a new and ever-changing world, they’re equally important for older kids learning to balance schoolwork, extracurriculars, and social activities. Setting a clear schedule helps teens prioritize tasks, stay organized, and develop healthy habits that will serve them well throughout the school year and beyond.

OurPact’s Automated Schedules let you set times when your child won’t have screen time—no need to physically take away their device. This helps your child get into a routine of spending parts of the day off their screens. Having screen-free periods can build a longer attention span, reduce distractions, boost creativity, and encourage more face-to-face interactions.

Automated Schedules are fully customizable to fit your family’s needs. You can choose which days and times you want to block, all from one screen. When you open the OurPact app, you’ll see the schedules for that day right on your dashboard. Tapping the schedule tile on your dashboard displays all the schedules you’ve created for your child.

Once a schedule is set, any apps marked Blocked by Schedule in the App Rules tab will be blocked on your child’s device during the scheduled block time. With the addition of App Permissions, you can choose to exclude specific apps from being blocked by these schedules.

When you create a schedule for your child, it automatically defaults to Recurring, meaning it will continue to block your child’s device at those times until you turn it off. This “set it and forget it” approach is helpful for bedtime or school schedules. If you don’t want a schedule to repeat, simply toggle off the Recurring option when creating or editing the schedule.

Automated Schedules are a straightforward way to enforce healthy limits and gently guide your child to healthier screen time habits.

Learn more about OurPact’s features at https://ourpact.com