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Introducing our new vertical: Our Mom Era, for all señoras who have kids – from little to big. We’ll be sharing our own takes on parenting, and interviewing professionals on what matters to you and me.
Every parenting headline wants to give you a number: Two hours a day! One hour! None before age two! You’re a terrible parent if your kid isn’t watching PBS and playing Mozart by age three! Media is littered with conflicting data and articles on proper screen time.
I know I get confused. One week I’m strict around screen time with my 6 year old, and things go well, the next she gets a bad cold, stays home for a few days and the best thing to do is turn on a cartoon. Cut to the week after, and it’s trying to cut back on screen time all over again.
So what should you actually look at when managing your kids and screens?
We asked Dr. Michael Glazier — pediatrician and Chief Medical Officer at Bluebird Kids Health in Florida — to skip the number entirely and tell us what’s actually happening inside families.
There’s growing discussion that constant access to devices may matter more than overall screen time. What does that mean in practical terms for parents?
“We are living and raising our children in a world of constant and immediate access to information,” Dr. Glazier says. “While this can be incredibly helpful for knowledge acquisition, it can also be incredibly detrimental in terms of development and mental health.” Unlimited access — regardless of the total hours logged — risks disrupted sleep and increased anxiety and depression. His guidance: limit not just how much time kids spend on devices, but where they’re allowed to use them.
What are the first signs that screens may be affecting a child’s sleep or emotional regulation?
Forget the meltdown and instead look at the the negotiation. “Early signs of the negative effects of screen time on sleep regulation manifest when children start fighting the bedtime routine by asking for additional screen time” — the classic one more show, please — “and start taking longer and longer time to fall asleep once in bed.” A bedtime that keeps creeping later is often the tell before anything more dramatic shows up.
A lot of moms (of older kids) feel like they’re fighting an impossible battle when every other kid has a phone. What do you tell the parents who feel like outliers?
“I remind parents that their responsibility is not to the entire school grade, community, or neighborhood, but rather to their immediate family,” he says. “It’s okay to acknowledge there are different rules for different families.” Every household is making the call it believes is right for its own kids, and that’s allowed to look different from the house next door.
Are there ways screens are actually supporting child wellness that don’t get enough credit?
Yes — and it comes down to intent. Dr. Glazier points to platforms like Khan Academy (which I have just started to use for my LO), language-learning apps, and mindfulness tools as genuinely additive when used with purpose. Creative outlets — coding, drawing, making music online — fall into the same category. “The intent and structure of incorporating online content into a child’s day is often more important than the actual amount of screen time,” he explains. The line is active use versus passive scrolling.
If a mom came to you tomorrow and said “we’re resetting,” what’s the one first step you’d recommend?
Three things, in order:
- Set clear expectations for what the reset actually looks like
- Make sure the change is realistic for your household, and
- Involve the whole family — not just the kids.”A good first step, if not already done, is to limit where in the house screens can be accessed to more public rooms such as the living room, dining room, or kitchen, and remove them from the bedrooms,” he says. And it has to apply to everyone. “Children often model parental behavior.”
Find a pediatrician over at Bluebird Kids Health today.