Take action

Screens fill many toddlers’ days because each family’s sensible choice adds up to a world no one chose. Problems like that are solved by many families moving together.

The four commitments

1. None before six, as far as you can manage it. Video calls with family are the one exception, because a person on a video call can answer.
2. After six, a little, slow and shared, and none at meals or in the hour before bed.
3. Screen-free rooms for the youngest: every infant room, toddler room, preschool and kindergarten.
4. Ask the question everywhere a young child is seen: at every checkup, every early-intervention intake and every child-care enrollment, “How many hours a day is a screen on, and when?”

They can be held by families, child-care programs, pediatric offices and lawmakers at once, and they mean the same thing in every language.

Print them and pass them on: the four commitments on one page (US Letter; A4), free to print, copy and share unchanged.

Choose your page

• For parents
• For child-care providers and early-years teachers
• For schools, towns and policymakers
• For book clubs

General information, not medical advice. If you are worried about a child, talk with the child’s doctor.