Beyond Screen Time Guilt: The Role of TV and Video in Early Child Development
In this webinar, Cary Bazalgette will offer a fresh and insightful perspective on babies’ and toddlers’ relationship with moving image media. Moving on from the guilt-inducing screen time rules and dire warnings about developmental harm, she will explain what’s really happening when 0-3-year-olds are captivated by their favorite shows.
DATE: Monday, November 16, 2026
TIME: 9 AM PST | 12 PM EST | 5 PM GMT
LOCATION: Online. Click here to register.
Drawing on meticulous observational research and 35 years of media education expertise, Cary’s new book describes the remarkable ways in which children under three actively engage with film and television. She critiques the flawed research behind screen time rules, exposing the limitations of surveys and experimental studies in this context, providing vivid examples of typical behaviors, such as spontaneous laughter, frightened responses, and apparent “addiction,” while analyzing the learning challenges that young children eagerly embrace.
This event will be particularly useful to parents, early childhood practitioners, students, researchers, psychologists and teachers.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Cary Bazalgette is a pioneering figure in media education whose work has shaped how schools approach film and moving-image literacy. After teaching in London schools, she joined the British Film Institute in 1979, where she spent nearly three decades developing curriculum resources, research and policy, serving as Head of BFI Education until 2007. She edited the influential Primary Media Education: A Curriculum Statement (1989) and was founding chair of the Media Education Association. Her doctoral research at UCL Institute of Education explored how young children learn to understand film, leading to her book How Toddlers Learn the Secret Language of Movies (2022).