Angela Falkenberg, President of the Australian Primary Principals Association.

Put Down the Phone and Pick Up the Moment: Rethink Children’s Device Use

Take a moment and really think: what might your child be missing while you’re scrolling? Or perhaps more provocatively, what might you be missing?

Across the country, primary school leaders are voicing growing unease about what they’re seeing in today’s classrooms.  Despite decades of investment in early childhood programs, one in four Australian children still start school with developmental vulnerabilities. That’s around 60,000 children a year who are struggling with basic building blocks of learning: self-regulation, oral language, social skills, even toilet training.

These aren’t just numbers. These are children who have difficulty waiting their turn, managing their emotions, or expressing how they feel. Children who lack the confidence to join a game or a conversation. Children who, in some cases, are still learning how to toilet independently. Many of these challenges can be traced back to how they spend their early years, and worryingly, more and more of those hours are spent on devices.

We see the signs everywhere: toddlers in prams with iPads clipped to the belly bar. Children at restaurants, headphones on, eyes locked on screens while conversations happen around them, not with them. At playgrounds, on buses, in waiting rooms, even libraries, children absorbed by screens. Or worse, ignored as they call repeatedly—“Mum… Mum… Mum…”—while a parent scrolls endlessly.

There’s no denying the lure of the device. It’s instant, it’s effective, and in our busy, time-poor lives, it’s often the path of least resistance. But the cost? Missed moments. Missed modelling. Missed magic.

Because every time a screen fills the silence, a conversation doesn’t. Every time a device soothes discomfort, a child misses the chance to learn to self-regulate. Every time a parent is hunched over their phone, a child may feel invisible.

Even more concerning is what happens when children use devices unsupervised. Stories abound of children losing sleep, either gaming well into the night or lying awake, anxious after seeing something too scary, too adult, or too confronting. And without guidance, children mimic what they see and hear, often saying things no 7-year-old should even know.

This isn’t about banning technology. Devices aren’t the enemy, they’re brilliant tools when used well. But we need to stop using them as a substitute for connecting, for play, for presence.

Let’s flip the script. What if instead of handing over a phone, we handed over a question? What did you see today that made you smile? What if we paused to watch the sky with our child, to notice the bird they’re pointing out, to listen to their little stories and their big ideas?

We don’t need another App. We need attention.

The most powerful learning tool your child has isn’t digital. It’s you. Your voice, your curiosity, your presence. Let’s make time for more of that. Because your child is watching. And more than anything else, they want you to see them.

Go on—try it. Be present. Be curious. Be theirs.

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