Kudos to the Western Colorado Community Foundation for quickly providing a crucial next step in our understanding of the impact smartphones have on childhood development.
WCCF has been instrumental in developing a new cellphone policy for District 51 students — which separates students from their phones during class. It’s caught the eye of the attorney general as a model for other Colorado communities to emulate.
Now the foundation is turning its focus to “distracted parenting.” As much harm as smartphones can inflict on school-age children as direct consumers of phone-enabled technology, they can also deprive pre-schoolers of important developmental interactions when their parents won’t put their phones down.
The WCCF at the start of this month launched its Heads Up Parenting initiative, an awareness campaign for parents of children up to age 3 — a critical time when the parental gaze is crucial for communication development.
Babies are born with billions of neurons in their brain. As they begin to have positive interactions with their caregivers — such as being held when they cry, or making eye contact — their neurons begin to make connections that help support speech and language development. That process is affected if a parent is less responsive to their child.
When a parent gazes at their smartphone rather than their infant during interactions, it reduces opportunities for eye contact and joint attention — a crucial step for babies to learn in their communication development, researchers say.
“These are critical years. You can’t regain them. Once the kid’s three, four, five, they already either have that foundation or they’re kind of lacking it,” Tedi Gillespie, the WCCF outreach director told the Sentinel’s Nathan Deal.
Gillespie noted statistics compiled by entities such as the American Academy of Pediatrics — such as 80% of a kid’s social, emotional and cognitive development happening in their first three years.
At the heart of the campaign is information about how much time some parents of small children spend on their phones, as well as the developmental impact that has on their kids.
Per the campaign’s website, wc-cf.org/headsup, the average Millennial working parent spends 4 hours and 37 minutes per day with their phone, and phone use can lower parental communication with their child by as much as 39%.
The most effective outreach for the Heads Up Parenting initiative will come via pamphlets and other materials being given to parents at providers like pediatricians, primary care doctors and social service providers. But the rollout includes messaging on social media platforms — appropriate given the depths of distracted parenting.
We hope parents will seek out tips on how they can lower their screen time around their kids, including turning off non-human notifications, establishing device-free zones, using screen time limits and replacing screen time with playtime.
