Smart Beginnings

Our children are growing up in a digital world. Media is an influential part of their environment, and this brings joys and risks.

Children often start early with screen use, so being ‘screen smart’ parents and carers is important, right from the beginning. 

These pages contain many resources which support parents and carers to help children develop healthy and happy screen use, right from the start.

These include:

• CMA’s Helping 0 to 3 year olds thrive in a digital world.
• CMA’s child-development-based movie reviews are a guide to age-appropriate and enjoyable movies from ages 4 to 16.
• Ten tips for healthy game play offers guidance on navigating children’s use of games and apps.
• Working with your child and their digital privacy. These tips and short videos give practical ways in which parents and carers can talk with quite young children to develop their understanding of digital privacy.
• Screen time and digital technology use: how it affects child and teenage sleep. Phone use and game play can get in the way of a good night’s sleep – and children really need their sleep. This resource is from the Raising Children Network.
• This recent review article summarises the impacts of screen use for 0-5s.
• A really good link for people to read further about screens in early childhood, by Canadian Paediatric Society.

And there’ll be more to come.