if you always find it difficult to make your kids stop watching television or playing games on the smartphone giving them a twominute warning that screen time is about to end as most parents tend to do may not be the best solution new research suggestssuch warning by parents make transitions away from tablets phones televisions and other technological devices more painful for kids the findings showedthe researchers found that children aged one to five who were given a twominute warning by their parents were more upset when the screen went awaywe were really shocked to the point that we thought well maybe parents only give the twominute warning right before something unpleasant or when they know a child is likely to put up resistance said study lead author alexis hiniker from university of washington so we did a lot of things to control for that but every way we sliced it the twominute warning made it worse hiniker notedthe findings are based on interviews and a diary study of families who documented screen time transitions in detailparents reported that screen time transitions were easier when they were part of a routine the same child who might argue and negotiate for more screen time after a friday night treat may be perfectly fine with turning off the tv when breakfast is ready if that is part of the daily household routinescreen time transitions also went more smoothly if the technology was to blame children were less likely to be upset for instance if they could not watch a video because wifi was unavailable that raises the question of whether a twominute warning issued by the technology itself rather than a parent might still prove helpful researchers said a family might set a specific amount of screen time in an app and let the child pick an activity to follow at two minutes out the app could remind the child that it is almost time to eat lunch or meet a friend or get out the play doughthe study is scheduled to be presented at the association for computing machinerys 2016 chi conference in san jose california on may 9