Scripts, research and wooden toy alternatives by age, so that Christmas stays warm, connected and gloriously unplugged.
The short answer, if you need it quickly: tell grandparents before Christmas Day, not on it, and frame the conversation around what you want more of, not what you want less of. Something like, "We're trying to make this Christmas really hands-on and together, so we're keeping screens put away, and we'd love your help with that," lands far better than a rule delivered in the doorway. If a tablet appears anyway, redirect calmly and immediately, offer something with your hands, and do not treat the moment as a battle to win. The research is firmly on your side, and a single conversation, held with warmth, is almost always enough.
That said, the collision between your screen rules and a grandparent's well-meaning gift is one of the most common sources of quiet tension in family Christmases, and it deserves more than a script. It deserves context. Grandparents are not wrong to want to delight a grandchild; they are simply reaching for the most visible, loudly-marketed option. What follows is the evidence, the language and the practical alternatives that make a screen-free Christmas Day not only possible but genuinely better for everyone in the room.
Grandparents love generously and they shop in a world that markets screens at every turn. A tablet feels impressive, it feels educational, and it feels like a gift that will last. None of that motivation is wrong. Meanwhile, parents of under-fives are often working from a different body of evidence, one that has grown substantially in the past decade, and the gap between what grandparents absorbed about technology and what the science now says can feel like a different language entirely. Add the particular intensity of Christmas Day, when everyone wants to get it right, and you have the conditions for a genuinely awkward moment. Acknowledging that nobody is the villain here is the first and most useful thing you can do.
The evidence for hands-on, object-based play in the early years is substantial and consistent. Researchers Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, whose work on playful learning has shaped early childhood policy across several countries, describe the earliest years as a period when children learn through active, engaged, meaningful and socially interactive experience. Screens, particularly passive video, offer very little of that. The child sits; the screen moves. A wooden puzzle, a set of skittles or a simple board game with a grandparent does the opposite: the child moves, problem-solves, takes turns and reads another person's face.
What the research tells us
Psychologist Alison Gopnik's work on the "lantern versus spotlight" model of infant attention suggests that very young children are not designed for the narrow, directed focus that screens encourage. They learn best when their attention is broad, exploratory and free to wander, precisely the mode that open-ended physical play supports. A wooden stacking toy or a set of building blocks invites exactly that quality of attention.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding screen use for children under 18 months, with the exception of video calls, and keeping any use for children aged two to five to one hour per day of high-quality programming. Crucially, even where screens are permitted, the AAP stresses that co-viewing with an engaged adult is what makes the difference, which is also exactly what a grandparent with a board game provides, far more naturally and sustainably.
Developmental psychologist Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, whose TIMPANI toy study examined which playthings produced the richest developmental outcomes in young children, found consistently that open-ended, manipulable, social toys outperformed electronic alternatives on every measure of creativity, problem-solving and language development. Toys that do less, it turns out, demand more from the child, and that demand is where the growth happens.
The most effective conversation happens a week or two before Christmas, not on the doorstep. Try one of the following, adjusted to the relationship:
Notice that none of these scripts mention what you are against. They describe what you are for: togetherness, play, connection. That framing makes it genuinely difficult to argue with, because it asks grandparents to be more involved, not less.
Stay calm and redirect immediately. "Oh, we're keeping screens for another day, but look what else we've got. Come on, Grandad is going to show you how this works." Move physically. Put something in the child's hands. Children under five are extraordinarily present-tense: if something interesting is happening in front of them, the other thing ceases to exist. Your job on the day is simply to make the alternative more immediately compelling than the screen, which, with the right toys in the room, is easier than it sounds.
Stacking rings, simple shape sorters, large wooden threading beads and soft fabric blocks are ideal. Grandparents can sit on the floor and narrate: "That's the big red one, now where does it go?" That running commentary, what researchers Hart and Risley identified as the foundation of early language acquisition, is doing profound developmental work while feeling, to everyone in the room, like simple fun.
Wooden skittles are a revelation at this age. Rolling a ball, watching things fall over and collecting them again is endlessly satisfying, physically engaging and entirely social. A grandparent can bowl alongside a toddler for a full half-hour without anyone tiring of it. Simple wooden puzzles, peg boards and first construction sets also shine here.
Explore Jaques wooden skittles, built for exactly this kind of multigenerational playSimple matching and memory games, first lotto sets and cooperative games with a spinner rather than complex rules work beautifully here. The social scaffold of a grandparent, patient and enthusiastic, is precisely what Vygotsky described as the zone of proximal development in action: a child achieves more with a warm adult alongside than they ever could alone.
Traditional games come into their own. Draughts with simplified rules, dominoes, card games like Snap or pairs, and classic wooden construction all work. These are games that grandparents already know and love, which removes any barrier to engagement and replaces it with genuine expertise and shared delight.
Browse Jaques traditional games, many unchanged in design since the Victorian eraJaques of London has been making games and toys since 1795, longer than any other games company in the world. The Staunton chess set, created in 1849, and the invention of croquet in 1851 are part of a lineage that has outlasted every technology of its era. The reason these objects endure is not nostalgia: it is that they are genuinely well-designed for the way human beings, and human families, actually play. A well-made wooden toy passes between generations not because parents are sentimental but because the toy continues to work. It requires no charging, no software updates and no parental supervision of content. It requires only another person, and that is precisely what Christmas Day is for.
A note on shared memory
Researcher Stuart Brown, whose work on the neuroscience of play is among the most cited in the field, argues that play is not merely practice for adult life but a biological necessity throughout it. When a grandparent plays skittles on the sitting room floor, they are not babysitting. They are doing something their nervous system genuinely needs, and so is the child. The toy is simply the excuse both of them required.
A curated list, sent by message or email in early December, removes all ambiguity and frames you as helpful rather than restrictive. Keep it short, keep it specific, and include one or two lines about why each item is wonderful. "The skittles are perfect because you can play together on the floor, no instructions needed" is far more useful to a grandparent than a product name alone. You might also include a link to the Jaques wooden toys collection, which spans every age from early infancy to school age and allows grandparents to choose something that feels genuinely considered.
Acknowledge that she is right that some screen content has educational value, then redirect to the evidence. "The research we've read says that the most educational thing at this age is actually playing with another person, because language and problem-solving develop fastest in back-and-forth interaction. That's literally you, playing with them, which is why we'd rather have that than the best app." The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that even permitted screen time for under-fives should involve a co-viewing adult. A grandmother playing dominoes is, by any measure, doing more developmental work than an app running on a sofa.
No. Children run to novelty, not to screens specifically. The tablet is new and shiny; so would a set of wooden skittles be, or a brightly painted board game they have never seen before. Redirect calmly, do not make it a confrontation, and put something equally novel in their hands. Under-fives have short attention spans in the very best sense: they are not attached to the tablet, they are attached to whatever is most interesting right now. Make the alternative more interesting, and the moment passes.
Frame it as an invitation, not a restriction. "We really want you to be the people who teach them this game" is an entirely different sentence from "we don't want them on screens." Give grandparents a specific, joyful role. The discomfort most grandparents feel around screen rules is not about technology at all; it is about whether they are still needed and valued. Show them that they are, concretely and immediately, and the tension dissolves.
Quite a lot, as it happens. Rolling a ball back and forth, stacking and knocking over wooden blocks, singing nursery rhymes with accompanying actions, reading a picture book aloud with exaggerated voices, or simply following a toddler around and narrating what they touch: all of these are rich, developmentally meaningful activities that require nothing more than a willing adult. Gopnik's research reminds us that toddlers are running extraordinarily complex learning programmes at all times. A grandparent who simply pays warm, unhurried attention is providing exactly the social input that programme requires. No game, no instructions, no screen needed.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.