iPads for Baby Shower Gifts? I Don’t Think So! Parents of Young Children: Beware of Early Screen Use

Many new parents are registering for some very interesting gifts for their baby showers. I’ve been wondering if someone has written a book specifically for this demographic focused on limiting screen use with young children. A quick Google search turned up some great titles that I would have wanted to read when I was pregnant with my first son 30 years ago. Books on this issue do exist, but they don’t seem to be at the top of anyone’s registry or reading list. I’ll admit, I’m much older now and haven’t sat in a pediatrician’s office for decades. That’s where I used to pick up Parenting Magazine and other resources about raising children.

Even 30 years ago, there were many conversations about good parenting practices, but nothing like today’s constant stream of opinions on social media. It seems everyone is suddenly an expert. Some are talking about the grave danger in too much screen exposure at a young age. One trend that especially concerns me is when parents turn children’s behavior into online jokes. Parenting isn’t a game, and our children deserve thoughtful, informed care.

Why This Conversation Can’t Wait

I’ve worked with young children since 1980, and so much has changed. Today, the most urgent conversation centers on screens and social media, especially for adolescents. Parents of children under 20 need to pay close attention to how some children have already been wired into an addiction to screens and social media.

For kids over 10 who already have heavy screen exposure, the focus may need to be on gradually reducing and resetting those habits. I’ve literally heard the word “detox” used for this age group. The parents that I think about most are parents of babies and children under 10. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but the message is this: YOU can protect them now.

What I’m Seeing and What Worries Me

What I’ve witnessed firsthand, and what I hear regularly from friends and families, is honestly troubling:

iPads as baby shower gifts. Some strollers even have built-in tablet holders. Screens should not be a primary way to occupy infants and toddlers. Early brain development depends on real-world interaction.

Televisions in a baby’s bedroom. I’ve seen toddlers praised for standing in their crib watching shows. But when screens replace human interaction, children miss critical language development and social modeling.

Phones handed over immediately. Pre-K teachers have long observed children grabbing for a parent’s phone at pickup. Many of those children are now teens who may be deeply dependent on screens.

Screens at the dinner table. When everyone is on a device, who is supporting conversation, social-emotional growth, and thinking skills? No one.

Using screens to manage every moment of discomfort. When a device is handed over the moment a child fusses, cries, or grows restless, we rob them of the chance to learn emotional regulation. Tolerating boredom, managing frustration, and self-soothing are skills and they require practice from a very young age.

Background TV running all day. Even when a child isn’t actively watching, a television on in the background fragments attention and reduces the quantity and quality of parent-child conversation, both of which are foundational to language development and cognitive growth.

No screen-free zones or times. In homes without any established boundaries around screens, children grow up without a framework for moderation. The absence of limits sends a quiet but powerful message that says, screens are always available, always appropriate, and always the default.

The research supports the concern. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding screen use entirely for children under 18 to 24 months, except for video chatting, and calls for consistent limits throughout early childhood. Studies have linked heavy early screen exposure to delays in language acquisition, reduced attention spans, disrupted sleep, and greater difficulty with emotional self-regulation. These are not small stakes; they are the building blocks of a child’s development. The content and research reviewed in Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book, Anxious Generation, should make any parent fearful.

A Generation Waking Up

My last 19 years of teaching were spent at a university in an Applied Developmental Psychology program, this was the foundational degree my teacher preparation students completed before pursuing their M.Ed. and certifications. Is it a great degree for future teachers? Absolutely, but that’s a conversation for another piece of writing. What’s relevant here is that I added discussions of social media and screen use to one of my syllabi at least ten years ago, and somewhere around 2017, something shifted.

Students, the majority of which were 20 years old when taking this class, began arriving with a growing awareness of their own screen use and how it had already taken a toll on their mental health. As they connected that personal reckoning with what they were learning about child development, you could watch them put the pieces together in real time. Eyes widened. A look of genuine astonishment would wash over their faces, and it deepened with each passing year. Some groups felt so strongly about the issue that they chose it as the focus of an assignment I gave annually, one that asked them to think and present in the spirit of a TED Talk. “We cannot let this happen with our own children,” I began to hear them say, semester after semester.

The Window Is Still Open

These students are now the next generation of parents. I can only hope they carry those classroom conversations with them and find the courage to lead change in how children are raised in a world dominated by screens. The window to protect young children is open right now and the parents holding them are the ones who can keep it that way.

Perhaps that is where the real work begins, not in policies or platforms, but in quiet, everyday decisions. In choosing presence over convenience, connection over distraction, and long-term development over short-term ease. The families raising young children today are navigating something no previous generation has faced, an environment engineered to capture attention from the earliest years. But awareness creates choice. When parents understand what is at stake the development of attention, imagination, emotional regulation, and deep thinking, they are far more equipped to draw thoughtful boundaries, even when it feels countercultural.

Change rarely happens all at once. It happens in living rooms where devices are set aside, in car rides filled with conversation instead of passive consumption, in moments of boredom that are allowed to stretch into creativity. These small, intentional choices compound over time, shaping not only individual children, but the culture they will one day carry forward. If we want a future where children can think deeply, connect meaningfully, and engage fully with the world around them, it begins with protecting the earliest years. The opportunity is here, fragile, but powerful and what we choose to do with it will echo far beyond this generation.