[incomingpain]

>I Have been researching a lot recently and I am struggling to find clear guidelines on how to approach screen time with children.

dont fix what's not broken. If they have lots of screentime but are watching educational stuff like alphablock/numberblocks. why would you do anything about it?

>But the screen time advice seems to conflict this approach somewhat. I often see sources advocating for a hard limit of screen time, which seems counterproductive in the context of how we approach teaching our children on managing gratification and self control.

There's lots of bad advice on the internet. Much of which is malicious. Dont trust everything you read on the internet.

>I am keen to believe that providing viable alternatives and setting an example by our own non-screen quality family time should steer the child in the right direction.

You want to be playing catch/kick/ball with your kid. Go for that bikeride with them. Take them fishing. Do some painting with them. But if it's -30c outside and a foot of snow, they are watching educational tv. My butt is not doing snow stuff lol.