Child Screen Time Guidelines - But What About Their Parents?

Parents’ views on raising children in an increasingly digital world.

The UK Government recommends no more than one hour a day of screen time for under 5’s, but this is an unachievable standard for many modern parents. With screen usage increasing during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, for many families, screens are a part of daily life. Increasingly, educational and homework demands have also taken a virtual format since the pandemic.

In March 2026, the UK government released a set of guidelines regarding screen time use for under 5s. This included avoiding all screen time for under 2s, unless the activity encourages bonding, conversation or interaction between the infant and caregiver. For the 2-5s, screens should also be avoided during mealtimes and before bed. But guidelines often fail to account for the realities of raising children in the digital age.

I am a Doctoral Researcher, whose career path so far has been (trying to!) understand how the experiences of early life, from in the womb to beyond, shape our development and wellbeing. This encompasses biological effects, including brain development, genetics and viral infections before birth, to environmental effects, including parenting, pandemics and education.

This means I work directly with pregnant women and their babies once they are born, toddlers, all the way up to pre-teens. I also work directly with a focus group of women who gave birth during the pandemic, which helps me to shape my research to the focus and interest of those I am studying. They also, in turn, share their experiences with me on what it was like to be a new parent when the world was changing.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Children Are Sponges

To take a step back, why do we need to study child development? Well, children are sponges. By this I mean they are experts at soaking up information around them, making new connections, and learning new things. In fact, the average 1-2 year old has about 50% more synapses than adults do. Children’s brains are hardwired to take in information, though not all of it is useful. Anyone who has met a child before, knows that they can draw outlandish conclusions (I recently heard from a child that cheese is, in fact, made of strings).

This is why we go through something called ‘Synaptic Pruning’,  where our brains start to remove the unneeded connections as we get older, to strengthen the important ones. This means children are in something called a critical period for development, where the things they learn during the early stages of their lives shape the behaviours, patterns and pathways they can follow as they get older.

By studying things that can both positively or negatively impact these early experiences, we can ensure that every child gets the best start in life, and shapes the world more positively for the next generation of adults.

Is Screen Time Bad for Children?

One such early experience a child may have is with screens. Today, it is very difficult to imagine a life without screens. Many of us can agree that screen usage has changed in recent years. The widespread use of touchscreen mobile phones, laptops and tablets differs from a single TV in the living room, as was the norm many years ago. Currently, around 97% of US homes have a TV, 83% have a tablet and 77% have smartphones.

Many of these screen time increases have been driven by the pandemic. One study found that within 10–11-year-old children in the UK, screen time increased by 11% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Another study found that across 6 countries, in 3–7-year-olds, screen time has increased on average by 50 minutes a day, mostly driven by entertainment, rather than educational, content.

Despite the rise of screen usage, recent research has cautioned against the use of screens with young children. A 2024 Systematic Review found that prolonged exposure to screens within the first two years of life was associated with poorer language skills and overall cognitive development. They found that toddlers who watched more than two hours of TV a day were four times more likely to have delayed cognitive development, and were 3.7 times more likely to have delayed motor development. Another study found that children with excessive screen time had poorer mental health outcomes in their teenage years.

The Big However

Despite increasing evidence that screen time usage increases, many studies caution against blindly accepting that screens are inherently malicious devices. Many factors can influence how negatively screens can impact children.

Firstly, context. Screen time detriments are seen less when screen time is accompanied by an active parent. This study found that delayed language development was 8.47 times more likely when watching television without a parent actively engaging.

Secondly, content. Passive content was associated with poorer quality of life and socio-emotional outcomes, however, educational content was the opposite and was related to positive educational outcomes and no detriment to socio-emotional development. Finally, interactive content, for example video games, led to positive educational outcomes, but poorer socio-emotional outcomes.

Thirdly, type. One study found that fast-paced cartoons produced more negative associations with cognitive skills such as inhibitory control, attention and even memory. But that slower-paced content did not.

Many other factors warrant further investigation, including time, age of screen time onset, device type, etc. Though demonising screen use fails to consider the bigger picture regarding its effects on development.

What Do Parents Think?

Back in April, the new governmental screen time recommendations in the UK had just been released. I wanted to speak with the people this advice was written for to understand their views. So, we asked them questions as part of a general discussion and used their feedback to help design some questions for our study participants regarding screen time use. This is part of my wider role within the Gen2020 Study but as part of Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE). 

The consensus: parents were glad to have some kind of guidance. Parents reported that often it can be a minefield of misinformation when it comes to how to parent their children. Overzealous opinions online of all forms made it hard to know what the right thing was to do. They appreciated then that they could come to a source that they trusted for guidance regarding screens.

The caveat was that parents also thought that the guidelines were often not actually attainable. Parents mentioned that often their child did slip over the 1 hour a day recommended for 2–5-year-olds. Similarly, those with under 2s, couldn’t often stick to avoiding all passive screen time. This led to feelings of guilt and shame. Often TV was the only option for parents working from home without other childcare, or parents allowed their children to watch TV when they had had a long day.

Overall, they felt the guidelines were useful, but that a more realistic approach to parenting may be necessary.

So, What Is the Answer?

Firstly, more research is needed to understand the nuances in screen time use in children. Secondly, we should also consider the impact on maternal mental health and the secondary effects of mothers’ wellbeing on children.

In my opinion, striving for the best possible upbringing for your child is always best. But also understanding that we are all human, and that the best is not always the outcome, but simply the aim.