They tested it on toddlers. Tonight, you test it.
5 checks before you press play, what to do in the cooking hour by age, and what the newest research really says about children's shows.
5 checks before you press play.
Think of the show you were about to put on. Tick each one it passes. It saves on this phone.
0 of 5: Run the checks on the show you were about to play.
Dinner still has to be cooked. Pick your child's age.
We have all pressed play so dinner could get made. That was never on you. These sit next to you on the kitchen floor, away from the stove and the knife.
- Two steel vessels and a wooden spoon. The oldest drum kit in India.
- One low drawer that is only theirs. Lids, plastic containers, a steel glass. Change what is inside every week.
- A ball of atta dough. To squeeze, poke and pat flat.
- Big whole vegetables. A potato, an onion, a carrot to carry from one bowl to another.
- A little water and a cup. A shallow tub, two fingers of water, you right beside them.
- Wash the vegetables. A tub of water, the tomatoes and carrots, an old cloth to dry them.
- Tear the leaves. Coriander or spinach, torn into a bowl for you.
- Dough snakes. Roll the atta into long ropes and coil them.
- Match the lids. Four containers, four lids, mixed up.
- Wipe the table. A damp cloth and a real job.
- Set the table. One plate, one spoon, one glass for each person.
- Curry leaves off the stem. Slow, fiddly, and they are proud of the pile.
- Press shapes in dough. A katori makes a perfect circle.
- Sort by colour. All the red vegetables here, all the green ones there.
- Pour the water. A small jug, the family's glasses, a cloth for spills.
These are things parents have always done, not study findings. They work because the child is doing something real, next to the person they most want to be near.
I am Manjunath. I built a maze for my daughter, and these guides are what I learnt on the way.
She knew Ganesha before she knew ABCs.
I wanted one quiet thing in a small child's hands. Something that does nothing until that hand moves it.
Read my story →In 2022 the New York Times described how one of the world's biggest rhymes shows, CoComelon, was tested. A toddler watched an episode. Beside it, a small screen played dull real-life clips. Each time the child looked away, the team took note. The company says it was a small, one-time study and has not been used for years.
Most of what under-threes watch was not made for them.
Researchers logged the videos that 47 children under three actually watched: 426 videos in all. Then they checked each one.
Henderson et al., Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2024 · one study, 47 children
Go deeper: how they checked
The team collected the viewing of 47 infants and toddlers aged 0 to 35 months and coded 426 videos for learning goals, age fit, pace, selling and violence. "Selling" covers branded content, unboxing and calls to buy. It is one study with a small group of families, so read it as a clear picture of what ends up on the screen, not a figure for every home.
Unboxing videos are advertisements with no end. A two-year-old cannot tell a show from a sales pitch. You can, in ten seconds.
For years we blamed the speed. The evidence points elsewhere.
In 2025, researchers pooled the experiments done so far. Fast shows against slow shows: no clear difference in how children paid attention afterwards. Impossible scenes against real-life scenes: children did a little worse right after the impossible ones.
It is a small effect, and it varied a lot from study to study. So it is one check out of five, not a ban on cartoons.
Go deeper: the numbers
Hinten, Scarf and Imuta (Developmental Science, 2025) combined 19 studies on pace (1,431 children aged 1.5 to 10) and 16 studies on fantasy (1,297 children aged 1.5 to 6). Pace showed no reliable effect (d = −0.12, not statistically significant). Fantasy showed a small negative effect on attention and self-control tasks right after viewing (d = −0.24). The spread between studies was very wide: in some the effect was negative, in others positive or absent. These are short lab sessions, so they say nothing certain about months or years.
Tap each one.
Dinner is 30 minutes away. Your two-year-old is pulling at your leg. Best first move?
Next to you, with a real job. A small child pulling at your leg wants to be near you more than they want to be entertained. And on the days you do press play, run the five checks first. That is a good evening too.
Check five costs you five minutes. Sit for the start. You will know very quickly whether you want it in their head.
Krishna's Farm Friends
A birch wood maze where your child guides each farm friend home with a magnetic pen. It does nothing on its own, so their hands and head do the work. No batteries, no sound. For 15 months and up.
Sources (5)
- Henderson, Bailes, Sturza, Robb, Radesky & Munzer. YouTube for young children: what are infants and toddlers watching on the most popular video-sharing app? Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2024.
- Hinten AE, Scarf D, Imuta K. Meta-analytic review of the short-term effects of media exposure on children's attention and executive functions. Developmental Science, 2025.
- Segal D. A Kid's Show Juggernaut That Leaves Nothing to Chance. The New York Times, May 5 2022.
- Jarvey N. CoComelon started as a YouTube show for toddlers. Fortune, December 3 2025 (includes the company's reply).
- World Health Organization. Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age, 2019.
Let's build childhoods worth cherishing.