The Kids Watching Shows on Your Phone Are Not Alright

An eye-opening Q&A with The Analogue Family’s Katherine Johnson Martinko, PLUS: The laziest chicken your kids will *definitely* eat.

I sometimes joke that my kids are allergic to TV since screen time can be a slippery slope toward tantrums (them) and regret (me). But after a holiday season full of long flights, road-trips, and restaurant meals with many cranky moments of desperation, we found ourselves handing phones and tablets to our 2- and 4-year-old more often than usual to entertain, reward, and occupy them.

And then we returned to real life. Our 4-year-old would wake us in the morning asking for TV time and spend the whole walk home from school trying to convince me it’s a good day to watch a video. Our 2-year-old—who very cutely still pronounces it “phome”— began to snatch any device left unsupervised...including, very annoyingly, my Apple watch. Even music has become an issue: Both kids beg to watch Spotify videos on loop whenever we so much as open the app. More than ever, we worry we’ve fed some sort of latent addiction and surfaced with screen monsters.

In tandem, my husband and I have been fretting about our own phone habits. It’s not uncommon for us to spend evenings mindlessly scrolling side-by-side instead of, you know, talking to each other, or “washing up” before bed in separate bathrooms only to surface an hour and a billion Reels later. And although we both use our phones for work—David is constantly interfacing with Hotel Lilien team members and guests in real time while I run the property’s social account and am always juggling multiple freelance clients—we both check our phones more compulsively than we need to, interrupting quality time together and interactions with our kids.

So many other parents I know with similarly-aged kids are equally worried about the screen time habits they are modeling for their kids as we navigate parenting in a world where screens are mobile and therefore ever present. While some do a better job setting screen time boundaries that keep their kids’ behavioral issues under control, others (hi! hello!) grapple with guilt from relying on TV as a babysitter. While the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does set forth a number of guidelines designed to help new parents navigate all of this, the TL;DR is if you must give young kids screen time, it’s best to watch with them...which completely defeats the purpose of turning on the TV to get a much-needed break.

While clicking around for advice I liked better, I stumbled upon The Analogue Family, a Substack written by Katherine Johnson Martinko, author of Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance. A reporter, public speaker, and the mother of three boys spanning age 9 to 15, Katherine is deeply invested in minimizing screen time among her children—especially in light of her career-worth of research on the effects of said screen time on kids.

I was super grateful when she answered what was, if we’re being honest here, my low-key call for help. Our conversation has inspired some pretty big screen time policy changes in my household. You’re cordially invited to be a fly on my wall and thumb through the transcript.

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More Than Mom: What does “analogue parenting” look like in your house?

Katherine: I’m pro-technology and don’t think all screen time is inherently bad, but we’ve never had a TV and were late getting WiFi and smartphones, so it never felt like a convenient time to introduce screen time to our kids. As things changed, we started to feel like we were reaping the rewards of an unorthodox approach.

I think that kids with minimal exposure to screens for as many years as possible benefit from space to mature and develop practical and interpersonal life skills, from healthy habits to the ability to communicate effectively, maintain friendships, carry on conversations, make eye contact, read body language, focus, pay attention to tasks that need to be done, navigate the world around them, and be aware of their surroundings.

Now that I have a laptop, I try not to bring it into the main part of the house to draw a line between work and family time, and to model that for my kids. We have a desktop computer in a common area where our kids can text from, participate in group chats, make their own plans, and get their fair share of silly memes, but those activities are restricted to that space to safeguard their screen-free time. We use an old iPhone as a family phone used strictly for music in our kitchen, where I encourage my kids to listen to albums or playlists instead of compulsively cueing up individual songs as they think of them, which is distracting. We still see movies on special occasions, but TV is not a daily expectation.

Sometimes my kids look up things on my phone or use it to take photos or make little movies of their Legos or hamster, but I limit that to 20 or 30 minutes tops, then take it back.

“I don’t think phones should be children’s primary source of entertainment or carried around in their pockets.”

As I read in Jean M. Twenge, PhD’s book, iGen, I believe that owning a smartphone before age 16 is like getting a driver’s license before you’ve developed the maturity to operate a vehicle responsibly. I see it as age-gating, preventing kids from accessing activities that they are not mature enough to do; it’s no different from buying alcohol and cigarettes, watching X- and R-rated movies, or getting tattoos. We don’t let them dabble and try to create balance. Kids’ prefrontal cortex needs to grow a little more before they can do these things.

Dare I ask about FaceTime?

I limit FaceTime to close family members; when it’s overused, it can create privacy issues and detract from family relationships. I think it’s better than scrolling through people’s updates on social media, since it involves interactions that are face-to-face...ish. But I do wonder if it’s replacing something more valuable for my children; they are more present on the phone vs. on video, so I think it’s more beneficial to have audio conversations.

How would you define a "healthy" relationship with screens for kids (and adults)?

For kids, screens should not have a significant or primary role in a child’s life. They can be present to a very limited degree, something they indulge in periodically, like a treat or when a parent really needs a break. The goal is for kids to have more of an analog childhood—to reframe this so instead of with withholding devices, you’re giving them back a chance at a childhood that’s optimal for development. You’re teaching them to recognize the utility of phones, which can be amazing tools to augment and make things convenient, but not at the expense of attention and focus.

“Phones shouldn’t dominate our lives, be our primary source of entertainment, or be the main source of our relationships. A healthy relationship with screens balances communicating over phones and going out to see people. It’s not itching to have a phone in your pocket or hands every moment of the day.”

If your screen time is high, advice I appreciate from Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism is to consider what else you’re doing, and fix your analog life first. When you have high-quality leisure time, hobbies, and goals, it’s easier to resist the firing call of your phone. Live mostly in the real world, being present with real people doing real things that add value to the physical world.

Based on your research and experience, what are the biggest mistakes parents of young kids are making when it comes to screen time?

Introducing it too soon, and thinking you need it in your life when you really don’t.

Delay, delay, delay as long as you possibly can! It’s easier to delay screen time than introduce it and try to claw it back once kids are used to it.

Little kids will accept your right to establish routines and patterns. They won’t fight back if they don’t know another way exists.

Parents of younger children often offer screen time to their kids to get a break from parenting for mental health or essential tasks like work or meal prep. How do you suggest parents get the breaks they need without this crutch?

The more you can train your kids to be independent and use loose part toys with open-ended purposes [Ed’s note: See Katherine’s expansive list right here!], the less often they’ll get bored and the more they will be independently curious and enter the state of play they are all capable of.

It may take a while to retrain kids who are conditioned to be hyper-stimulated and engaged by screens since they are out of practice, but these skills can be developed in children of all ages.

“When you let kids be, they will find things to do. And if they’re bored? Tell them, ‘That’s great, a good idea is coming to you shortly!’”

Routine is another effective tool to help us avoid using screens to fill the voids during a day that’s seemingly endless. When I was home with two toddlers, I kept my kids on a strict schedule of eating, napping, walking, independent playtime, and trips to the library. I stuck to it day after day so they knew what to expect when I’d say, Okay, now I have to do this, and you’re going to do this other thing.

What about at restaurants?

I discourage the use of screens at restaurants since it’s a fantastic opportunity for kids to engage with the world around them by having conversations with family members, looking at other people to see what’s going on, and being present. If parents aren’t on their phones, and kids aren’t on their devices, it's an opportunity to teach proper etiquette.

When screen time is necessary, are videos or games better for kids? What about phone vs. tablet vs. TV?

People think playing educational iPad apps are better for kids than watching, say, a Disney film, but the opposite is the case: What makes interactive games so engaging is that they are hyper-stimulating, which is also what makes them addicting and feeds compulsive behavior. The same goes for autoplaying videos: Kids’ brains can’t handle jumping from one show to the next.

Research that shows it takes half as much of this kind of interactive screen time to disrupt a child’s sleep vs. one hour of passive screen time (i.e., watching a movie). What’s more, kids have temper tantrums when you take interactive screen time away because it’s harder to come down from. On the other hand, kids understand that it’s time to get up off the couch and do something else when a movie is over—they’re more able to walk away without a meltdown.

If you have to choose between a TV, phone, or tablet, choose the biggest screen and play a movie: The larger the screen, the better, and the further away the better. This way, they are less lost in that world.

What are your thoughts on doling out screen time as a reward or taking it away as a punishment?

When you use screen time as a reward, you’re teaching your kid it’s something very good and desirable and to live without it is somehow bad. In fact, the best possible thing to strive for is to be offline and away from your device, playing outside where the best memories are made, engaging with other kids, and doing interesting and creative things.

If you’re restricting screen time as a punishment, it’s probably too prevalent in your child’s life: The kid shouldn’t be on it enough that having it withheld is a punishment.

Are you worried that restricting children’s screen time will lead them to binge later, like the cliché kids who don’t taste sugar until college, then overdo it at their dorm dining halls?

No, because they aren’t getting zero screen time. Public schools are saturated with screens since many people think it’s important professionally for kids to learn digital tools.

Sparing them from compulsive use and living online creates a foundation that differentiates kids from machines, sets them up for healthy relationships, and enables them to be confident in the world as humans, not agents of the devices themselves. I don’t think kids given the chance to become well-established and emotionally-regulated will binge because they won’t want to trade in their high-quality life for low-quality life on their phone.

Say (ahem) you've failed to set effective screen time boundaries for your kids. What's the best way to course-correct?

Don’t feel guilty, bad, or ashamed of how you’ve handled screens in the past. So much of this information is new.

“The way you started out parenting doesn’t have to be the way you continue. It’s never too late to make a change.”

No matter how far gone you think you are, there are steps you can take to reign in and establish new household rules. You are the boss of your own family. You get to decide what kind of environment you want for your child.

In some situations, you can get rid of handheld devices completely. I knew a family who had a smashing ceremony: The father and son took a hammer to a tablet. It made such an impact that the son didn’t ask for it back because he knew it didn’t exist anymore.

A less dramatic approach is to tell your child the rules are changing for their safety: Try, ‘I learned a new thing I didn’t know before, and now I have to do this.’ Next, replace digital toys with analog toys. Soon, playing with them will be the new normal since kids who aren’t used to being hyper-stimulation are more easily entertained by simpler toys.

Is there a half-way house here?

Some parents limit screen time to certain places like airplanes. I urge parents not to pull out devices prematurely, though, since kids might never ask for them. It’s parents who are afraid of boredom. We need to be careful not to get in the way of our children’s thoughts and potential for losing themselves in their imaginations.

It doesn’t take a lot to entertain a young child if they aren’t used to having a screen.

I almost hate to ask, but what are the ramifications of being raised by parents who are constantly distracted by their phones?

It’s a huge unknown.

Every time you look at your phone, you’re saying that what’s on it is more important than the person who you’re with. As an adult, that hurts. Imagine how much worse it is for our children.

We all have important things to do on our phones, but raising children is important, too. Plus, if we want to teach our kids to accept boredom and wait for good ideas to strike, we also need to accept our inherent boredom: While raising kids can be exciting and thrilling, it can be hard and tedious and yes, boring, [especially when you’re off your phone].

If you have to use your phone in front of your child to navigate or look something up, it can help to narrate what you’re doing. This gives them context so they can appreciate you are doing something practical. Plus, it helps you check your own behaviors; it’s embarrassing to admit you’re checking Instagram for the 100th time today vs. texting Grandma to make plans or looking up a recipe.

There are still times when I reach for my phone and have to stop and ask myself, do I have to do this thing now when the kids are here? I urge other parents to consider whether what they are doing is necessary, if it’s really adding value, and what price they are paying, considering being on your phone and seeing things you’re not participating in while you’re stuck at home with your kids might actually end up making you feel worse about yourself and your life.

Total gear shift here: I’m the laziest cook.

If it doesn’t take less time to prep than a pot of pasta, let them eat pasta. So you can understand why I was overjoyed when I realized that frozen chicken tenderloins can be microwaved for just 10 minutes to render...drum roll please!...extremely plain chicken that my kids gobble down. I simply lay a bunch of frozen chicken flat in a microwave-safe dish with a sprinkle of salt and a splash of water or broth. Sometimes I flip it half way through...but you don’t have to. (I used a meat thermometer and my very own taste buds to fact-check this, for the record.)

Plain isn’t bad in this case: My microwave chicken is juicy and tender. It reminds me of Sweetgreen chicken, which always seems so fresh and vaguely superior to whatever typically comes out of my kitchen. It’s easy to adapt to any style salad, shred over nachos, stuff into a quesadilla or a pita. That said, I typically serve it straight-up alongside the aforementioned pasta, which is the only thing my kids want to eat every night for dinner, anyhow.

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