Unfortunately, there’s no hard and fast rule about how much or what kind of screen time your child should be getting–it’s a subject that’s just too complex to give a simple “X hours of screen time is safe, more than X is bad” because it really depends on how your child is engaging with the device in question. You’ll have to be present in your observations of how your child tends to interact with screens. Ask yourself:

• Does your child turn to screens before playing with other toys?

• Does your child tend to move on from TV or games to other tactile or imaginative play options?

• Does your child enjoy playing with others without screens?

• Does your child enjoy sharing their devices with others?

• Does your child engage with stories they watch or play in other types of play? (coloring, re-enacting with stuffed animals, make believe stories with movie characters, etc.)

When your child is engaging actively with their devices, they are still stimulating their imaginations, and simply using them as yet another tool to combat boredom with. The problem begins to set in when the screens become a way to avoid boredom. It’s actually good to be bored–that’s when your child’s imagination gets to be creative and imaginative! When they never let themselves get bored, they aren’t able to engage that creative, problem solving part of their brain.