Toddlers and Screen Time: New Common-Sense, Science-Based Guidance

The organization ZERO TO THREE has just provided an important service to anyone raising children in today’s digital world. In Slate today I write about its new report, Screen Sense: Setting the Record Straight, and the research on children under age 2.

It’s a question always sparking hot debate in parenting circles: Do you let your babies and toddlers use screens? For years, the health and child development establishment has been advising parents to avoid exposing their toddlers and babies to screen media. But daily life increasingly includes video, smartphones, and touchscreen tablets. Questions have been flying: Is staying away really the best approach?

Last month, however, a new message broke through—part of a wave of new pronouncements rooted in science that could make way for new approaches and push “screen time” to be much more than an electronic babysitter.

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