A warm, research-backed guide for parents navigating screen gifts from grandparents, with ready-to-use scripts and wooden toy alternatives that everyone can feel good about.
If a grandparent has offered, ordered, or is quietly planning to give your under-five an iPad this Christmas, the honest answer is: you are allowed to say something, you are right to say it gently, and there is a kinder gift waiting in the wings. Current guidance from the World Health Organization recommends no screen time at all for children under two, and no more than one hour of sedentary screen time per day for children aged three to four, with the emphasis firmly on interactive, supervised viewing rather than solo use. The research behind that guidance is substantial, and sharing it is not a criticism of grandparents. It is simply parenting in the light of evidence that did not exist when today's grandparents were raising their own children.
The conversation is almost always worth having before Christmas morning, not after. A lovingly chosen wooden toy or traditional game, suggested early enough for grandparents to feel the excitement of selecting it themselves, lands far better than a post-holiday negotiation about where the iPad lives. The scripts below are designed to make that earlier conversation feel natural, warm and genuinely collaborative rather than confrontational.
Few parenting conversations carry more emotional freight than those between generations. Grandparents give technology because they associate it with opportunity, because they want to be the exciting, modern presence in a grandchild's life, and because a glowing tablet feels generous in a way that a wooden puzzle might not. None of that is misguided. It is love, expressed through the vocabulary of their era. The difficulty is that the developmental picture for very young children and screens is genuinely concerning, and staying quiet about it does not protect the relationship. It simply delays the harder conversation.
What the WHO says
The World Health Organization's guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under five recommend zero recreational screen time for infants under two, and a maximum of one hour per day for three- to four-year-olds. The WHO frames this not as a moral judgement but as a straightforward matter of how young brains and bodies develop best.
Developmental psychologists Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff have spent decades studying how children learn, and their central finding is disarmingly simple: children under five learn almost nothing from passive screen exposure that they would not learn better through face-to-face interaction and hands-on play. The so-called "video deficit" is well established. Young children watching a screen, even a high-quality educational programme, absorb considerably less language and conceptual understanding than they do from the same content delivered by a person in the room with them.
Dimitri Christakis has shown that fast-paced media can alter attentional patterns in very young children, with potential downstream effects on self-regulation. Jenny Radesky, whose work focuses specifically on mobile devices and toddlers, has observed that device use during caregiver-child interactions reduces the quality of verbal back-and-forth so critical to early language development. Hart and Risley's foundational research on early language environments reminds us that the words children hear, spoken by real people who love them, are among the most powerful developmental gifts available.
On language and real-world interaction
Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff have demonstrated that babies and toddlers are "social learners" whose brains are specifically tuned to acquire language and knowledge from live human interaction. Recorded voices and video simply do not activate the same neural pathways. The presence of a grandparent in the room, or even a phone call paired with a physical toy, is developmentally richer than any app.
Before reaching for a script, it helps to sit briefly with the generosity behind the gesture. A grandparent who chooses an iPad is not trying to undermine your parenting. They are trying to give something that feels exciting, future-ready and expensive enough to signal how much they love this child. They may also, if they live at a distance, be hoping for a device through which they can video-call, read stories and remain present. That is genuinely lovely. The task is not to refuse the love, but to redirect it toward something that serves the child's development just as well, or better, and that still allows grandparents to feel proud of their gift.
The following are honest, warm scripts you can adapt to your own voice and family dynamics.
The most effective alternative to an iPad is one that feels genuinely special rather than merely screen-free. Jaques of London, established in 1795 and the world's oldest games company, makes precisely this kind of gift. These are toys with history and craft behind them, things a grandparent can present with pride rather than apology.
For two-year-olds, beautifully finished wooden stacking toys, shape sorters and pull-along figures offer exactly the open-ended, hands-on exploration that Piaget described as the engine of early cognitive development. For four-year-olds, traditional games involving simple rules, turn-taking and a little strategic thinking are a perfect developmental fit. Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development maps neatly onto the image of a grandparent and grandchild playing a wooden skittles set together, the adult offering just enough challenge and scaffolding to stretch the child without overwhelming them.
Browse Jaques wooden toys, handcrafted for under-fives and beyond Explore traditional games from Jaques of London, est. 1795Why open-ended toys matter
Researcher Carly Dauch and colleagues found that toddlers who played with fewer, simpler toys engaged in longer, more focused and more creative play episodes than those given a larger array of feature-rich alternatives. A single well-made wooden toy, played with across weeks and months, may offer more developmental value than a cabinet full of battery-powered novelties.
A gift list works best when it does the emotional labour for grandparents rather than asking them to do it themselves. Lead with the most beautiful, most giftable item. Include a sentence or two about why you chose it: "This set of traditional wooden skittles is something we can all play in the garden together, and it is the kind of thing [child] will remember." Avoid framing the list as a set of restrictions. Frame it as a curation of things your child is genuinely ready for and excited by right now. That shift, from "please don't buy a screen" to "here are the things that will genuinely delight them," changes the emotional register of the whole conversation.
If an iPad is already under the tree, the first thing to do is breathe. One device does not determine a child's development. What matters far more is how it is used. Keep it in a shared space, use it together rather than as a solo occupation, and treat it as one small part of a play life that is rich in physical, social and imaginative experience. You might also gently suggest to grandparents that the tablet lives at their home, making visits feel special and keeping daily screen time within recommended limits without any ongoing negotiation at your end.
It is not too late, though the conversation does require a little more care once a purchase has been made. Acknowledge the generosity warmly and fully before raising any concern. Something like: "We are genuinely touched that you went to so much effort. We wanted to have a quick chat about how we use it, because the guidance for this age group is quite specific and we want to make sure we are all on the same page." From there, you might suggest the iPad lives at her house as a special visiting treat, which honours the gift, maintains your screen limits at home, and gives your mother-in-law something exclusive and exciting to offer her grandchild. It is also entirely reasonable to contact the retailer: most offer a return window, and if the gift has not yet been opened you may have more options than you think.
The most disarming move here is to say, honestly, that the research is genuinely new. Smartphones and tablets did not exist in their current form until 2007. The science of how very young children interact with touchscreens is therefore barely fifteen years old, and the clearest findings have emerged only in the last decade. Saying "none of this was known when you were raising us, and frankly it surprises us too" shifts the conversation away from judgement and toward shared curiosity. You might also note that the WHO guidance applies equally to all parents right now, including those who consider themselves very pro-technology. This is not a lifestyle choice. It is developmental science.
There is a real point buried in this objection, and it is worth honouring it. Technology skills do matter. The response is that the research on how those skills are best built is quite clear: under-fives develop the executive function, creativity and problem-solving capacity that underpin all future learning, including digital learning, through physical, social and imaginative play. Adele Diamond's work on executive function shows that the skills developed through play, self-regulation, working memory and cognitive flexibility, are precisely the skills that allow older children to use technology purposefully rather than compulsively. A four-year-old learning to take turns in a board game, to plan a move in advance and to lose graciously and try again, is building the very foundations that will make them a thoughtful, capable technology user at eight, twelve and twenty. The wooden toy is not the alternative to the future. It is the foundation for it.
For a two-year-old, look for open-ended wooden toys that reward exploration and repetition: stacking rings, shape sorters, pull-along figures and simple wooden puzzles with chunky pieces. The emphasis at this age is on sensory richness, cause and effect, and the delight of making something happen with their own hands. For a four-year-old, the world of traditional games opens up beautifully. Simple skittles sets playable indoors or out, classic lotto and matching games, introductory card games and wooden construction toys all sit within this age group's growing capacity for rules, strategy and cooperative play. Jaques of London's collections of wooden toys and traditional games span both age groups with pieces made to last and designed to be handed down, which is itself one of the most compelling arguments you can put to a grandparent who wants to give something truly meaningful.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.