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Key TakeawaysRecent academic research adds to evidence that allowing young children to watch television before bed has negative impacts on their brains.Experts say reducing or eliminating television before sleep at a young age sets families up for success.

Key Takeaways

Recent academic research adds to evidence that allowing young children to watch television before bed has negative impacts on their brains.Experts say reducing or eliminating television before sleep at a young age sets families up for success.

If you’ve been a parent or guardian to anyone under the age of ten in the last decade, chances are you’ve handed a fussy child a piece of technology as part of their bedtime routine to make life just a little bit easier.

A study published earlier this year inInfant Behavior and Developmentadds to existing research that suggests letting your child watch television at bedtime may cause problems for them later on in life.However, we don’t live in a puritanical technology-free world, so that begs the question: how can parents and guardians strike a balance?

Pediatricians React

“Pediatricians for years, this is even going back before smartphones and iPads and all that, we’ve always been against having television in your room partly because it really messes with those sleep biomechanics and how kids get into sleep.”

Derek McClellan, MDPediatricians for years, this is even going back before smartphones and iPads and all that, we’ve always been against having television in your room partly because it really messes with those sleep biomechanics and how kids get into sleep.

Derek McClellan, MD

Pediatricians for years, this is even going back before smartphones and iPads and all that, we’ve always been against having television in your room partly because it really messes with those sleep biomechanics and how kids get into sleep.

McClellan says that the more portable technology has become—long gone are the days of CRTs and bunny ears—the more challenging keeping television out of young children’s bedtime routines has become.

“We’ve largely been against it forever and now that most of these are handheld it really makes it more difficult, I think, on parents and caregivers.”

Screen Time Recommendations For Your Child By Age

Families with Less Support More Likely to Use Television

One key point the study makes is that television usage in children’s nighttime routines appears more common among families who access public assistance programs and first-time parents. All of the families studied were from diverse racial backgrounds, were part of an early childhood support program, and wereMedicaid-eligible.

Dr. Sarah Adams, MD, a pediatrician and medical director at Akron Children’s Hospital, says that it’s important to set reasonable expectations and not be too difficult on yourself if you can’t keep technology out of your child’s nighttime routine. It’s something she says she tries to model in her practice.

“I try to get to know the family and know their story, so that I can approach this sensitively and then that’s when we start to work together. And I ask, ‘What do you think you could do instead of using media, or what are those steps that you think you could take?’ Because me just telling them what to do is not really helpful.”

Adams says introducing activities that engage the brain but not screens, like reading, are a way to get kids “off their seat and on their feet” in the one to two hours before they go to bed.

McClellan says that, amongst the families he  interacts with on a day-to-day basis, the main concern is preventing future behavioral issues like the ones described in research studies. For him, setting clear expectations and boundaries around technology early in a child’s life means preventing more conflict down the line.

Sarah Adams, MD

“We try to say, ‘Hey, you’re setting yourself up for more issues later. You might have solved a problem in your eyes for that three-year-old or for that four-year-old, but now you’re setting the expectation that this is okay.’”

The Symptoms and Risks of Television Addiction

Both McClellan and Adams are cognizant of the fact that there is an inherent middle ground here. After all, eliminating technology completely is an unrealistic goal. McClellan says that what’s key is settingboundariesand intentions.

“I think, in those kind of constraints, where it’s like, ‘Alright, we’re going to watch one video, it’s going to be a half an hour, we’re going to do that as part of our bedtime routine,’ and it’s the parent and the child doing it together. I don’t know that any of us would necessarily say that’s a bad thing,” says McClellan.

Adams says a concern of caregivers she speaks to is how to adapt a bedtime routine oncetechnology’sinclusion has become an expectation. She says building that capacity is about setting reachable goals.

What This Means For You

For Optimal Brain Function, Kids Need Better Sleep

1 SourceVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Miller EB, Canfield CF, Wippick H, Shaw DS, Morris PA, Mendelsohn AL.Predictors of television at bedtime and associations with toddler sleep and behavior in a Medicaid-eligible, racial/ethnic minority sample.Infant Behav Dev. 2022;67:101707. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101707

1 Source

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Miller EB, Canfield CF, Wippick H, Shaw DS, Morris PA, Mendelsohn AL.Predictors of television at bedtime and associations with toddler sleep and behavior in a Medicaid-eligible, racial/ethnic minority sample.Infant Behav Dev. 2022;67:101707. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101707

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Miller EB, Canfield CF, Wippick H, Shaw DS, Morris PA, Mendelsohn AL.Predictors of television at bedtime and associations with toddler sleep and behavior in a Medicaid-eligible, racial/ethnic minority sample.Infant Behav Dev. 2022;67:101707. doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101707

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