A major concern of paediatricians today is excessive screen time in children. Here are three (painfully obvious) suggestions for avoiding and reducing screen time. Unfortunately, these are increasingly becoming viewed as unnecessary or unreasonable by some parents:

1. Read a lot of books
2. Talk to your kids about normal life every day
3. Don’t use digital devices as the default activity

Here are some observations on these suggestions by age.

Babies and toddlers

If you have a young child with you in the cart at the store, don’t hand them a phone to shut them up or keep them entertained (this is pretty much an epidemic every time I go to the store.) Talk to your child instead.

The store is a place where a child can learn a lot about the world by simply watching things and having you narrate the world for him. So talk! (Moms, I know constant narration gets exhausting, but keep it up!)

A book is a shared activity that brings parent and baby together. Opt for human-connective activities most of the time. A baby watching a device is a non-human connective activity. Minimise this as much as possible.

Bring a bag, box or backpack of books everywhere you go: to the doctor’s office, in the car, to the tyre shop, to the store. If you expect books to be the default, they will be.

Young children

Resist setting quotas for how much time your child must read. Forcing kids to read as if it is a punishment or a chore crushes the joy out of it for them (and you). Though well-intentioned, reading minute quotas tend to orient children away from the love of reading. Read for the joy of reading, and let your kids do the same!

Reading invitations, challenges or binges are different to reading quotas. It’s all about the approach!

When heading off somewhere in the car, a parent or grandparent can say something like, “Let’s bring 10 books with us today! Go grab the ones you want!”

Or they could say, “Hey, this Friday, let’s have a book binge. Let’s see if we can read and eat popcorn for a whole hour together!”

Or, “Maybe we can read a whole book out loud together this week. Want to try? Which one should we choose?”