We held out for three and a half years. But disaster loomed: a long-distance trip with dozens of hours in cramped vehicles and no way out.
So we discarded all the advice heaped on parents about the dangers of digital devices. We handed our toddler a screen.
Until that moment, our son’s screen time consisted of video chats with his grandparents or stealing our iPhone to take blurry pictures of his feet. He embraced his analog alternatives. His favorite Friday ritual is checking out as many library books as he can carry.
But faced with the prospect of family-trip meltdowns of biblical proportions, our resistance faltered. We went hunting for guidance on the least harmful (for him), least guilt-inducing (for us) way to entertain him with a tablet.
That’s when we realized: Like many first-time parents, we had fallen into the all-or-nothing trap around screen time: It was either a necessary babysitter or something to be avoided at all costs, an aversion bordering on moral panic.
The child development researchers I spoke to about it? Practically blasé. They saw screens as a valuable tool — overused but useful — that can help families when handled well.
What I didn’t hear: bans, panic or moral judgments. It was framed as a choice — one you can make better or worse. Researchers expressed a lot of compassion for parents squaring off against massive technology companies whose profit models aren’t always aligned with what’s best for children’s health.
“I am just a lot more concerned about how we design the digital landscape for kids than I am about whether we allow kids to use screens or not,” said Heather Kirkorian, an early childhood development researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I haven’t seen concrete evidence that convinces me that screen use itself is creating problematic behavior.”
The risks are real — from language delay in young children to screen addiction in older kids. But “good” screen time is now a small but strategic part of our family life. The emerging science on screens suggests that how young children use them matters far more than the number of hours they’re on them.
Here’s how I cracked the code on my toddler’s screen time.
The research and guidelines on toddler screen time
In the first two years of a child’s life, the brain triples in size. Infants add neural connections at the blistering rate of 1 million synapses per second, forging connections that help them make sense of the world.
Today, much of this time — about 2.5 hours of them per day, on average — is spent in front of a TV, tablet or phone.
Children’s first exposure to television, research has found, is as early as a few months old. About 6 in 10 parents of a child under 2 said their child watches YouTube, and 8 in 10 watch TV, according to the Pew Research Center. Forty percent have their own tablet.
It’s easy to see why. Parents say screens furnish babysitting, entertainment, calming distractions and even education, especially when care is out of reach.
In the United States, 58 percent of parents of toddlers allow access to screens. But the decision may involve a fair amount of guilt about the trade-offs.
Parents may have heard that screen time has been associated with impaired language development, school readiness, executive function, self-regulation and attention. Toddlers struggle to transfer 2D information into reality — even more than adults do. Machines, despite products and shows sold to parents, cannot teach babies language. The probability of a delay in language development rises sixfold when children start watching television before 12 months.
But when I spoke with pediatrician Jenny Radesky, co-director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, she noted that screen time doesn’t have to be an unmitigated danger: “There are types of media and child-centered design that are actually good in kids’ and parents’ lives.”
How good is heavily dependent on what children watch, how they watch it, who they watch it with and what activity it replaces.
The AAP’s advice has followed the research. In 1999, the organization flatly stated that children under 2 should not be exposed to screens. It reaffirmed that rejection in 2011. But then it softened its stance in 2016, given the lack of evidence justifying a blanket ban, and cited new research showing some positive benefits from live video chats and sharing media with parents.
Now, the AAP is retreating from rigid bans and time limits. New guidelines, released Jan. 20, emphasize that content and context of screens matter most, especially for social media, games and apps with algorithmic, habit-forming features such as autopay, notifications and targeting. The organization suggests less than an hour of daily screen time for toddlers and preschoolers, but says that limits should be set in consultation with families’ doctors, especially for children under 18 months.
“That’s the takeaway from the AAP guidelines,” said Radesky, who advises the organization. “Design really matters.” The majority of content and apps out there, she said, have been designed to exploit children’s incredible curiosity and capacity to learn with few if any safety standards. Her research found that most digital products used by children are designed for adults, and 99 percent of children played with apps featuring at least one manipulative design.
“The real thing to worry about at a societal level,” she added, “is how exploitative it is to make so much money off of kids’ attention.”
The three characteristics of good screen time
“Good screen time” exists. Fred Rogers knew it. Child development researchers agree on a few broad principles for toddler screen use.
Shared and social: The most impactful factor for screen time quality is whether someone else is present and engaged (even if it’s talking to kids about what they’re watching). “Kids learn best when they’re interacting with the world and people in that world,” Kirkorian said. “Children learn in a social context.” In one study, the mere presence of a 9-month-old peer boosted vocabulary learning from a touch screen. Even better are shows or digital books that coach and prompt parents to interact with their children.
Designed for young children’s brains: When Radesky polled Michigan parents about their 2-year-olds’ viewing habits, roughly 60 percent of the toddlers were watching YouTube, yet just 5.5 percent accessed YouTube Kids, an environment with parental controls. “If you want to build media that absorbs kids’ attention so you can make ad dollars, you can easily do that,” Radesky said. “Content creators have figured that out.” Many “educational” apps are essentially digital candy.
Compare that to Sesame Street, which adds repetition and pauses that allow children to respond to the screen, focuses on meaningful topics and avoids habit-forming features. Decades of research on thousands of children viewing Sesame Street show one thing: It works.Children who watch the program measurably improve their knowledge of letters, numbers, colors, shapes and spatial relations at ages 3 and 4. (Kids who discussed the program with parents benefited far more.) One 2019 study observed that the likelihood of young children falling behind in school fell by 14 to 16 percent in areas with better access to Sesame Street. Adult content, meanwhile, had the opposite effect.
Supplement, not substitute, other activities: If you’re consumed by a work call, giving your child a screen isn’t depriving them of one-on-one time. But if screen time — even quality content — displaces sleep, physical play, hands-on exploration or time with parents, that’s a loss. Even background TV has documented harms. For families who have few other options, Radesky recommends establishing clear boundaries, keeping devices in common rooms, minimizing time alone on devices and employing strong parental controls. “We don’t know yet the best way to help families that are overwhelmed,” she said. “We need more interventional research evidence.”
How we do toddler screen time
Every family must negotiate their own relationship with screens. For my family, the search led us back to our local library.
An online search turned up thousands of free read-along titles. In these e-books, a voice narrates the story while text is highlighted on the screen. It functions like story time with adults. The interactive elements in the best books support, not distract from, the narrative (critical for learning).
We bought an Amazon Fire, removed every app but Libby to download library books, and within days, he was checking out his own titles and telling us about new words and concepts we never taught him. Popular print books, such as Pete the Cat series, can be found in many collections.
We found Amazon Fire’s software and hardware frustrating, but the price was right (often available for $50 to $150, new or used). Many other Android or Apple devices offer similar features and parental controls.
Does he get free rein? No. The tablet lives on a high shelf. We pull it out for special occasions and emergencies (my son was engrossed in an e-book during an interview for this story because our day care opened late). The tablet remains a lifesaver for long trips.
What else? Video chats with grandma, grandpa and other family members happen every week. These long-distance hugs are a warm, interactive medium that build relationships and learning and amount to the most rewarding screen time for infants and toddlers, scientists say.
We’ve skipped video so far, but plan to introduce it soon. Every researcher I asked pointed me to the same place: PBS Kids. You can’t go wrong with its research-backed content proven to entertain and educate, they said. Even old episodes of “Mister Rogers” cast a calming spell on children today.
When we allow apps, we’ll turn to the nonprofit Common Sense Media. “Educational” apps rarely live up to the name — are often packed with distractions, disruptive advertising and habit-forming features — what Radesky calls an “endless bag of perfectly predictive, algorithmic potato chips.” But Common Sense Media helps parents sort through this morass with 26,000 professional reviews of movies, TV shows, books and more, often written by teachers, librarians and experienced academics.
How much screen time does our son get? Very little. (You can take this Washington Post quiz to understand if your child is getting too much.) But the time we do allow has enhanced our lives — and saved our sanity.
We now treat screens as something like ice cream: Something we do sometimes, usually together, but with no expectation that it happens every day. That keeps things low-stress and rewarding. If the schedule goes sideways, we make exceptions. Once in a while, he can just go screen wild.
Pediatrician approved.
“Should I feel guilty if my kid’s watching something that’s just fun? Of course not,” Radesky said.
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