Screen time in summary

The recommendations from experts in the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization (WHO) are summarised as follows:

Under 18 months of age: Avoid screen time except for video chatting

18-24 months : Only high -quality programming, co-viewed with an adult

Pre-schoolers(2 to 5 years): Limit screen time to 1 hour per day of high-quality content, co-viewed and discussed with a caregiver

Children (6+ years): Set consistent limits, ensure screen time does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, and face to face interactions.

Prolonged screen time in infants and children has been linked to a range of developmental, behavioural and physical effects. Cognitive development studies, research from Paediatric associations and public health data has identified delayed cognitive and language development, emotional and social development physical health and parent child interactions - because we parents, too, are distracted!

We recommend you interact with your children when they are interacting with the screen and no more than half to an hour a day, and that means everything that is a screen- tablet, laptop, television!

Children should be instead encouraged to be active- as should parents- dancing, listening to audiobooks -which we can play and record. So audio instead of video, music, dancing, playing outside alone or with other children- the use of balls, exploring, feeling the ground beneath their feet, swimming ( important to first safely enrol in swimming class).