{"id":365563,"date":"2026-01-12T04:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/365563\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T04:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:14:07","slug":"parents-of-under-fives-in-england-to-be-offered-screen-time-guidance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/365563\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents of under-fives in England to be offered screen time guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A national working group led by Children&#8217;s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza and Department for Education scientific adviser Professor Russell Viner will formulate the guidance after speaking to parents, children and early years practitioners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The terms of reference for their work will be published on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The guidance will also help parents come up with alternatives to screen time for their children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government research showed that at age two, 77% of children in the highest-income families are read to daily, compared with 32% in the lowest-income families.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: &#8220;Screens are part of family life now. The question parents are asking isn&#8217;t whether to use them, but how to use them well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Writing earlier in the Sunday Times, Phillipson said: &#8220;Like so many parents, I&#8217;ve had evenings where you give in when your little one wants &#8216;just one more&#8217; episode of their favourite show. But we&#8217;re beginning to see the risks when &#8216;just one more&#8217; starts to add up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She suggested parents could share a story on a tablet computer or use it for educational games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A national working group led by Children&#8217;s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza and Department for Education&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-365563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}