Hello, Zero Screen Time For Kids Is A Privilege
Let’s have mercy on the parents who don’t have a lot of help
By Melody Bay -
Screen time among children has always been a hot topic in my Whatsapp mum chat groups, but with the recent guidelines released by the Ministry of Health advocating set limits for each age category, debate has gone up even more about what’s realistic for us parents.
As a mother of a one-year-old, I wonder: How achievable is it for babies under 18 months old to have zero screen time according to those MOH guidelines?
What I’ve noticed is that the mums who preach and are able to enforce zero screen time are those who have a strong village, i.e. plenty of help. They often have more than one helper, or readily available grandparents (sometimes even both sets) who have the resources to take care of the child without resorting to screens.
For the rest of us who don’t have that kind of help, it’s almost impossible to adhere to the guidelines.
For most stay-home mums without a helper, it’s just you and the baby alone at home all day. On top of managing the baby, you’re also doing household chores, planning and preparing meals, washing up after meals, and trying to manage your own basic needs — all of which means stepping away from your baby for a while.
If you’re a working mother who’s looking after your sick child at home while still having to work (because you’ve already used up the six measly days of childcare leave per year), you’ll know how taxing it is to have to attend meetings, reply to emails, and juggle your workload while looking after your child. Even if you have a helper, she also needs to complete her duties.
Of course, it’s ideal if your child is able to play alone quietly while you do your thing. But we’ve all experienced days when they’re sick, teething, or just going through a really clingy phase where they don’t let you out of their sight without throwing a tantrum.
So what do you do? Take them into the meeting or bathroom? Lock the door and let them cry outside? Sometimes, in the screaming chaos, all we can do is find something that’ll hold their attention for that brief period of time and quickly attend to whatever it is we need to do. And that’s where the screen comes in as a last-resort temp babysitter.
As a mother who works from home full-time without a helper, I often find myself in this situation. When I need to step away, I try to use non-screen means to keep my baby distracted, like playing songs or giving him an interactive book, but it doesn’t always work. This means I inevitably need to pop him in front of a screen sometimes.
Another common childcare arrangement adopted by many Singaporeans is dropping off our kids at their grandparents’ place on weekdays. In that situation, chances are that the grandparents will inadvertently give them screen time. As my own mother puts it: “Am I supposed to not watch TV at all when your baby’s around? Then what will I do?”
Other mum friends in the same situation have mentioned that grandparents don’t know what else to do to entertain the baby, so they switch on the TV after they’ve run out of songs to sing and toys to play with them — and I don’t blame them, because looking after a child is exhausting, especially at their age. Other grandparents think it’s actually educational to let the child watch TV programmes, or they just don’t believe that too much screen time will affect their brain development. “You grew up watching TV what,” they say.
Let’s not even bring arguments with in-laws into the picture. If your mother-in-law decides to watch her K-drama in the middle of the day while your kid’s in the living room, asking her to turn it off will probably start World War 3, or at the very least give you a reputation as being difficult and uptight. And because you need their help, it’s easier to just keep quiet and let it slide rather than risk them declaring they don’t want to watch your kids anymore.
Here’s the stark reality: zero or minimal screen time is only enforceable when you have a village, and not just any village — one that’s in alignment with your rules.
How many of us have something like that?
And so there’s a lot of guilt around the screen time that our child gets. From the chatter in the Whatsapp mum groups I’m in, it seems that the level of guilt has only risen with the new guidelines.
That’s additional guilt on top of a whole load of mum guilt we already have.
Here’s my personal take: yes, we should do our best to minimise screen time for our kids within our means, but please don’t beat yourself up if you have to give screen time for some reason. You don’t need that extra guilt eating away at you, and no, you’re not a terrible mother.
Instead, try to balance things out with plenty of face-to-face interaction, and more time exploring and playing in the real world. The studies that show excessive screen time having a negative impact on cognitive alertness and language development indicate that screen time has displaced real-world interaction, leading to the adverse effects.
So while elimination of screen time altogether may not be possible, there’s plenty you can do to ensure your child’s cognitive and language development are not affected.
You can set your own guideline that for every 10 minutes of screen time, you or the grandparents take your kid out on a stroller walk for 20 minutes. Or you can sandwich screen time with periods of interactive playtime where your kid gets undivided attention.
You can also opt for low-stimulation programmes that won’t overwhelm their senses. These programmes are often set at a slower pace, are visually calming, and have soothing narratives — so they’re closer to real life than hyped-up kids’ shows that have whirling bright colours and fast loud music (looking at you, Cocomelon and Pinkfong).
Here are my tried-and-tested suggestions for low-stimulation programmes:
- Puffin Rock on Netflix - a cartoon about a family of puffins, with a visually pleasing aesthetic and gentle narrative
- Lucas the Spider on Netflix - an animation about an adorable spider and his group of friends, which include a housefly, dog, and fish
- Slow living vlogs on YouTube - my favourites are those where people are gardening or cleaning, which often have calm background music and a slow pace. If you’re looking for recommendations: Her 86m2, Hamimommy, Honeyjubu, and Stay With Cotton.
Ultimately, your child needs a happy and sane mother. And sanity is achieved with balance, whether that’s giving them a screen for a few minutes while you take a much-needed breather or coming to a reasonable compromise with the grandparents without creating tension. The benefits will far outweigh the risks of occasional screen time, and everyone will be happy.