Screen use for toddlers aged 2-4

The World Health Organisation recommends that children aged 2-4 should have no more than an hour of screen time per day. Here’s why:

• When it comes to developing speech, language and communication skills, watching a screen isn’t nearly as helpful as talking face to face to a real person, or sharing a book. So it’s important to spend time talking and chatting to your toddler and reading with them whenever you can – we’ve got lots of tips for how this can fit into daily life.
• Kids generally aren’t active when they’re looking at a screen – it’s important to balance screen time with getting outdoors, running around and doing hands-on activities like drawing and playing with their toys. All these help their wellbeing and physical development.

We all have such busy lives and have so much on our minds it’s understandable that we’ll use screen time to keep our wee ones occupied, for example when we need to get things done or when things don’t go to plan. But it’s a good idea to have some other activities up your sleeve as well – we’ve got loads of suggestions for fun things to do that don’t involve screens.

It’s pretty hard to get through the day without looking at our phones – even if we can resist the temptation to scroll through our social media accounts, we need our phones for banking, shopping, finding our way around and lots more. So we’re not saying ‘never look at your phone’. Instead, we’re suggesting you set it aside when you’re with your child, so you can focus on playing and chatting with them. Here’s why:

Playing, chatting and reading together helps your child develop their communication skills

As your toddler grows, simple things you can do every day with them, like chatting, playing and sharing a book together, all help them develop their speech, language and communication skills. It's much easier for your child to focus on you if you’re face to face and there are no other distractions, like TV or your phone. So when you’re chatting or playing with your wee one, try to give them your full attention and put away your phone where possible. 

Our section on helping 3-5 year olds with speech and language explains how all the little interactions you have with your child light up their mind, and has lots of tips for fitting these interactions into a busy day. 

We can miss out if we’re on our phones

If your eyes are on your phone, you may miss the little non-verbal signals your child gives you as they learn to communicate, like pointing at things, smiling and frowning.

The more you notice and the more responsive you are to your child, the more they feel heard and understood, which is great for helping them feel secure, as well as boosting their communication skills. 

Putting away our phones may help improve behaviour

Tantrums and challenging behaviour can be kids’ ways of trying to communicate with us, to show that they’re unhappy, frustrated or angry. The more time you spend chatting, playing and reading with them, the more they’ll learn to express themselves in words, so they won’t have to resort to tantrums so often.

Plus if our children think we’re ignoring them in favour of our phones, they may act up to get our attention. We’re not saying they’ll behave like little angels if we put our phones away. But putting our phones aside and playing and chatting with them, with no distractions, may help. 

Putting away our phones sets a good example

If our children see us spending lots of time on our phones, they’ll want to do the same thing. So it’s a good idea to model the kind of behaviour you’d like to see from them as they grow up – like putting your phone away at mealtimes and bedtime and putting it down to listen when they’re talking to you.

‘Putting our phones away’ is easier said than done – they’re designed to keep us scrolling! But we have tips to help if you want to reduce your screen time.