Screen Time Use

Limit or eliminate screen time for young children's health.

Too much screen time for young children may lead to attention problems, difficulty at school, and obesity later in life. Child care providers can establish program practices that reduce or eliminate screen time — particularly low-quality, sedentary screen time — and promote other activities that instill healthier habits at this early age. Below you can find resources about limiting screen time and offering alternative activities.

Best practices

The resources on this page can help child care programs reach all of the following best practices:

  • “Allow no screen time for toddlers and infants.”
  • "During any preschool screen time activities, providers always supervise and watch with the children."
  • “Ensure that televisions/DVD are never turned on during meals or snacks.”
  • “If available, limit computer use to a set time of day and not more than 15 minutes at a time for preschool children.”
  • “Limit screen time for preschool children to 30 minutes or less per week.”
  • “Never use TV/video watching as a reward.”
  • “Store televisions outside of rooms where children spend most of their time (or do not have televisions).”
  • “When providing television/DVD viewing for preschool children, it is exclusively commercial-free, age-appropriate, educational programming.”

Resources to limit screen time usage and promote alternative activities

  • Action Guide: For Child Care Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies

Summary: A guide for creating policies including rationale, steps for creating policies, and policy recommendations.
Source: Connecticut State Department of Education
Access: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/sde/nutrition/cacfp/ccpolicy/child_care_action_guide.pdf

  • Go Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Go NAPSACC) Bilingual Self-Assessments

Summary: Contacting a consultant and completing the online version of the Go NAPSACC assessments opens up a suite of planning, learning, and implementation tools to understand further what the health best practices are and how to reach them at your child care.
Source: Go Nutritional and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Go NAPSACC)
Access: https://gonapsacc.org/our-focus-areas

  • Healthy Kids, Healthy Future

Summary: This part of the website, under the Reduce Screen Time section, includes facts about and tips for reducing screen time. Find activities for children and resources for adults, including handouts, trainings, alternative sleep strategies, and guidance on appropriate use of technology.
Source: The Nemours Foundation
Access: https://healthykidshealthyfuture.org/5-healthy-goals/reduce-screen-time/

  • Media and Children

Summary: This website includes information about media time and how it impacts children. It also has parent resources, such as “Beyond Screen Time: A Parent’s Guide to Media Use” and “Family Media Plan.”
Source: The American Academy of Pediatrics
Access: https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/

  • Model Policies for Creating a Healthy Nutrition and Physical Activity Environment in Child Care Settings

Summary: This nutrition toolkit describes model policies and provides tips to on how to fulfill them.
Source: Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Bureau of Community Food and Nutrition Assistance
Access: https://health.mo.gov/living/dnhs_pdfs/ChildCareModelPolicies.pdf 

  • Nutrition and Wellness Tips for Young Children

Summary: Collection of tip sheets for nutrition and physical activity. Each tip sheet focuses on a specific topic and includes a practical application section to help apply the tips to a child care program for children ages 2 through 5 years old. See pages 63-71.
Source: United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service
Access: https://www.yoursforchildren.com/nutrition-resources/TeamNutrition/Nutrition%20&%20Wellness%20Tips%20for%20Young%20Children%20--%20English.pdf

  • Policy Brief on Early Learning and Use of Technology

Summary: This is a policy brief about the early learning and use of technology with specific reasons and policies around the use of different types of technology and the use of them in early learning.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Access: https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ecd/policy_brief_final3.pdf

  • Sample Child Care Physical Activity Policy

Summary : This is an example of a physical activity policy for a child care. It outlines the daily play, role of staff members and times of play.
Source: South Carolina Early Child Care and Education
Access: http://www.scchildcare.org/media/6938/GH_SAMPLE_Level_B_Physical_Activity_Policy.pdf 

  • Screen Time Reduction Toolkit for Child Care Providers

Summary: Includes tips to reduce screen time, letter to parents, tips to reduce screen time, games to reduce screen time. Policy Examples are provided on page 8.
Source: Michigan Department of Community Health
Access: https://d3knp61p33sjvn.cloudfront.net/2015/04/Screen-TimeReductionToolkit.pdf

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