Let’s face it: there’s a ton of judgment out there around screen time, children, and parenting. Many people will see a child glued to a screen and automatically assume their parents are lazy, negligent, or don’t know how to discipline their children. There’s a lot wrong with these types of judgments, but one major issue is that screen time scenarios are often looked at completely out of context. When you see a child with their face glued to a screen, you don’t know what else they did that day, what they are doing on that screen, or anything else about their life or their family’s. Another aspect of the conversation that isn’t often acknowledged is the socioeconomic class of the child’s family. Conversations around screen time tend to center middle- or to upper-class norms, values, and realities.
