A Child Development Consultant, Dr Enifome Ogbimi, has linked late speech development in children to excessive screen time.
While appearing as a guest on Channels Television today, in celebration of the 2026 Children’s Day, Dr Ogimi advised parents to limit screen time for their children to a maximum of one hour per day, to guard against late speech development in their children.
“Exposing children to excessive screen time damages their brains. But when we take away the screen, we discover that some of them begin to speak earlier. Some of them speak late.
“Parents come to us to complain that their kids are not talking. Excessive screen time is why your child is not talking.
“They are supposed to have face-to-face interaction time, which is a lifelong skill, but they are not getting it.
“There should be a limit. If you have to give a child screen time, it should be a maximum of one hour.”
She urged parents and guardians to pay more attention to understanding their children’s developmental stages to groom them into wholesome adults.
“We cannot celebrate children if we do not understand them. Children should not be trained to meet the needs of adults in society. It should be the other way round. Because of that, there is this expectation gap. We need to ask what children’s developmental capabilities are. What are they capable of doing versus adults’ expectations?
“So children begin to get into trouble when they behave in ways they are not developmentally capable of.
“We need to understand children so we can actually celebrate them on Children’s Day.
“We have to meet them where they are developmentally and train them to where we want them to be.
“There is a need for parents to understand developmental science and neuroscience of our children to be able to train them properly.
“This isn’t about gentle parenting or cuddling. This is about understanding where the child is developmentally so as not to place high expectations on them, even when their ages are below such expectations.
“It is key that every caregiver partners with institutions and government to let them understand how children will survive. Their needs need to be met at different levels”.
