A warm, practical guide to reducing phone use across the whole family this Christmas, without a single awkward confrontation.
The single most effective thing you can do is create the conditions for connection before anyone walks through the door, not after. When grandparents arrive to find a table already laid with a game, a puzzle half-started, or a set of wooden toys waiting to be discovered, the phone in the pocket stays there: not because they have been told to put it away, but because something more interesting has already claimed the room. This is not a rule. It is an invitation, and invitations work where instructions breed resentment.
If you do need to say something directly, the research gives you solid ground to stand on. Developmental psychologists Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff have documented how young children learn primarily through contingent, face-to-face interaction: the kind where an adult's eyes, voice, and attention are genuinely present. When the adults around a child are fractured in their attention, even briefly and repeatedly, the quality of that learning environment drops in ways a child under five cannot compensate for. You are not being precious. You are describing something real.
What the evidence tells us
Dimitri Christakis has shown that background media and divided adult attention both affect the richness of language directed at young children. Hart and Risley's foundational research established that the quantity and quality of words spoken directly to a child in the early years shape vocabulary and cognitive development for years afterwards. Every phone glance is a small subtraction from that exchange.
Christmas concentrates everything. Extended family, high emotion, disrupted routine, and the particular intensity that small children bring to a room full of people who love them. For a child under five, this is also one of the richest possible environments for language acquisition, imaginative play, and the kind of warm relational experience that Alison Gopnik's work on early learning describes as foundational to how children build their understanding of the world. What adults do with that environment matters enormously, even when they do not realise they are doing anything at all.
The modelling point is especially important and often the most persuasive one to raise with grandparents who mean well. Children do not learn what they are told. They learn what they see repeated by the people they love. When every trusted adult in a room periodically disappears into a screen, a toddler absorbs that as the natural rhythm of human attention. Lev Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development rests on the idea that adults scaffold a child's development through active, responsive engagement. Passive physical presence does not achieve the same thing.
The lightest possible touch, applied early, does the most work. A message in the days before Christmas that says something like "we are trying to make this one properly phone-free so the children get the best of everyone" is not a decree. It is a framing, and it places you all on the same side. You are not policing grandparents. You are inviting them into something. The distinction is small in wording and enormous in how it lands.
Designating a visible, accessible spot for phones, a shelf, a basket, or a side table with a charger, removes the decision from the moment and puts it in advance, where it is emotionally neutral. Nobody has to be asked in front of the children. Nobody has to feel singled out. The basket is just there, and it quietly does its work.
For the grandparent who photographs everything: "We would love to get some proper pictures together after lunch. Could we keep phones away until then so the children have everyone's full attention this morning?" This acknowledges their impulse as loving rather than disruptive, and gives them a sanctioned moment rather than a flat refusal.
For the grandparent who checks messages habitually and without thinking: "We are doing a loose phone-free morning, nothing strict, just trying to be all-in together. There is a charging spot in the hall if anyone wants to leave theirs there." Casual in tone, practical in detail, no accusation required.
For the grandparent who pushes back directly: "I know it might feel like a lot, but the children are only this age once, and the research is really clear that undivided attention is what they need from the people they love. We would love this Christmas to feel fully present for everyone." Then move on. Do not negotiate the principle.
Both sets of grandparents are not one problem with two bodies. They may have entirely different reasons for reaching for their phones, different sensitivities about being directed in their own family relationships, and different ideas about what a relaxed Christmas looks like. The temptation is to treat both conversations identically, but a message that works with one set may feel blunt or unnecessary to the other.
What helps is keeping the standard consistent while the conversation is tailored. The same expectation, held warmly and delivered differently, is not inconsistency. It is attentiveness. Both families need to hear that this matters and why, but they do not need to hear it in identical words.
The play environment as a quiet argument
Jeffrey Trawick-Smith's research on high-quality play materials consistently shows that open-ended, social toys draw adults and children into shared engagement more reliably than any instruction to put a phone down. When everyone is leaning over the same board game or passing pieces of a wooden puzzle across the table, the phone simply becomes the least interesting thing in the room.
The most argument-proof strategy available to any parent this Christmas is a well-chosen game on the table before lunch. Not a children's toy that grandparents watch from a distance, but something genuinely shared: a traditional game with enough history and tactility to draw even the most phone-dependent adult in. The hands reach out before the mind has decided to engage, and that is precisely how it should work.
Jaques of London has been making exactly this kind of game since 1795, and the traditional games collection is built for moments where you need play to carry a room. These are not novelties. They are objects with enough weight, craft, and personality to make the table feel like somewhere worth staying.
Wooden toys serve a different but complementary function when younger children are present. A well-made set placed at the centre of a family gathering creates what might be called a third party: something that belongs to no one, requires no screen, and invites contribution from every age in the room. Grandparents who would never have chosen to sit on the floor find themselves there, stacking and sorting alongside a two-year-old, and the phone is simply forgotten. The wooden toys collection at Jaques offers pieces that work precisely this way: tactile, durable, and genuinely beautiful to handle.
Stuart Brown's research on play across the lifespan is worth noting here: play is not something adults do for children's benefit. It is something that restores adults too. When grandparents are genuinely playing, they are not babysitting and reaching for their phones between turns. They are present in the full sense, and children feel that difference immediately.
Name her love before you name the request. Something like "we know you want to capture everything because it means so much to you, and that is wonderful, but could we have an hour at the table that is just ours, and then take some proper pictures together after?" separates the impulse, which is affectionate, from the behaviour, which is disruptive. Offering a dedicated photo moment gives her something to look forward to rather than something taken away. Most grandparents who photograph constantly are doing so from a place of knowing time passes quickly. Meeting that feeling directly tends to dissolve the defensiveness.
Yes, but it need not feel like double the effort. The principle you are communicating is identical: undivided presence is what your child needs and what this Christmas is for. The words can differ, the timing can differ, and the tone can be calibrated to each relationship. Think of it less as repeating yourself and more as translating a consistent truth into two different languages. The consistency of the standard is what matters, not the consistency of the script.
Ground the conversation in what you know rather than what you prefer. Researchers including Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, and Christakis have built substantial evidence that divided adult attention in early childhood has measurable effects on language development and emotional wellbeing. You are not imposing a personal preference. You are describing a developmental reality. If your parents push back, stay calm and stay specific: "I am not asking anyone to be perfect. I am just asking for a few hours where the children have all of us, properly. That is all." You do not need to win the argument. You need to hold the standard warmly and without apology.
Re-engage rather than reproach. A direct "come on, we need you for this next bit" is warmer and more effective than a pointed look or a reminder about the phone rule. Choosing games that require all players to be present, games with turns, decisions, or a degree of gentle competition, makes drifting harder because the structure of the game itself calls people back. This is one reason traditional games with physical pieces and clear rules outperform more passive activities. The game does the asking so you do not have to.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.