Phone/tablet use for young children

[NoNameisGoodEnough]

I work in early years.

I have seen a real decline in the attention, behaviour, quality of play and interactions, patience in children over the past 10 years, especially over recent years.

I know many will say it is down to covid, and that might well be part of it but I can't help feeling that it is down to the amount of time young children spend on phones and tablets.

When I walk around a supermarket, toddlers are sat in the trolley with a phone. Yesterday, there was a family out pushing a toddler in a pram, the child is watching something on a phone. You go to restaurants, children are plugged into headsets on a ipad. It just seems so sad that they are not encouraged to chat, observe the world around them and are subject to constant passive stimulation.

My DC is 16 now so we missed this phase. We would talk and chat around the shops and when we went out to eat, or take some colouring sheets or a few small world type toys. I'm not saying I am the perfect parent. I didn't take an iPad because we didn't have one and I only got a smart phone when she was about 6 and even then I hardly had any data so we couldn't have played back to back kids' shows even if I'd wanted to!

YANBU. I think it’s ridiculous parents can’t cope with their kids in public without shoving a screen in their face.

How do you think your children will have any sort of attention span if they’re glued to a screen, either at home or out and about?

YANBU of course but you’ll get a lot of defensive posts accusing you of sneering, or clinging onto the imaginary ‘benefits’ of toddlers using screens.

There is nothing to be gained from them, and I for one think we are slowly waking up to the horrifying effects they’ve have on baby’s developing brains and the behaviour of young children.

And just to add to my last post, it’s also becoming obvious screens cause massive sensory dysregulation in young children

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240109/Study-links-early-screen-time-to-atypical-sensory-processing-in-toddlers.aspx

I don't judge, I can see it with my DCs. It's a problem. They're 5 and 7 and I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingertips for them not to get completely addicted to screens. It's so much easier though, maybe I'm the addict. They usually only play nintendo and ipad on the weekends, but I can see the creep happening, I put my foot down this weekend and there has been a marked improvement in 48hrs.

I agree. They should be banned for kids under 12!

My DD4 had free access to a tablet at around 2, for about 3 weeks, to try and make it like any tou. All she could do on it was colouring in and shape sorting games etc In those 3 weeks she stopped wanting to play, got aggressive when it was taken off her. She tried to hit me when I took it away, and that was the last time she had access to a screen. She's 4 now.

tV is now limited too, as it was causing the same kind of issues, poor attitude, aggressive reactions, lack of wanting to play etc. it had crept in after a bout if illness and cold/wet weather etc.
She's now limited to maybe 30-45m 2-3 times a week and definite endings. Like "one episode of bing" or until the coconuts come in Moana etc