Baby’s First Screens: A New Developmental Reality

Screens and more screens. Technology is everywhere. It’s a fundamental part of how we live. As educators, professionals, and parents, we need to understand tech’s impact on early childhood development, and one place to start is with our own habits.

Parents and caregivers as tech role models

“We are children’s first teachers, so what we do with our device in front of children sets the stage for their use,” says Sara Phou, LCSW, director of Erikson Institute’s Center for Children and Families. “There are times that we need to put the device down and be present. Otherwise, what that can say to the child is, ‘mom thinks the phone is more important than me.’ Being intentional is, in itself, communication. When the child sees me put it down and turn to them, that says ‘you are more important’.”

Young children learn through human interaction

A baby coos and the parent responds. Serve and return. You make a noise and I make one back. There are natural pauses, lip movements, sounds, language, all face-to-face. These human contacts are important developmental exchanges. The “work” of young children is play. Hands-on interaction with the people and items around them. While devices can be useful tools, too much time spent on screens is lost “real world time”.

Frequently using a device to regulate behavior can teach children to turn to screens as a coping mechanism. Instead of experiencing themselves outwardly, they draw inward. For the child, it becomes, “if I have a difficult feeling, I go to the phone.” Parents and caregivers of young children need to engage technology carefully and keep the focus on helping children use their own internal abilities and their relationships to cope.

For example, if a toddler is fussy and seems bored with her toys, her parent can take a moment to be curious and understand this further. The caregiver may explore what she is feeling, asking, “you seem ready to do something new, is that right?” After waiting a moment for the child to respond, the parent can take the child’s lead or suggest an alternate activity that they can do together—clapping out a song, marching around the room, or just cuddling with a favorite book—before resorting to a screen. We have to remember that young children aren’t expected to be able to play for long periods on their own.

In everyday life there will be moments where parents and caregivers may need to use their phone or other screen to keep a youngster occupied, but the goal is to minimize those moments and instead, focus on live interactions whenever possible.

“Technology has its place and its usefulness, but it doesn’t replace real human connection,” Phou says. Children are never too young to learn that the adults in their lives value face to face interaction with them over “screen time.”

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