Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions.

To leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our caller.

Hi Dr. Mona, I recently saw your post about co-washing videos on TV and YouTube,

whatever it may be with Ryan and I was curious about how you do that tips and tricks.

I have two sons, one is three and a half and one is 19 months old and you know the little one

gets exposed to a lot of TV because of his older brother and I would love to co-watch with him

and find out you know what things we should be saying, what things we should be pointing out,

what to look for and things to co-watch rather than just mindlessly letting him watch.

So hopefully you can answer this question and I really look forward to hearing what you

have to say. Thank you. Hello, thank you for this question. I love talking about child development.

I actually love talking about screen time because who doesn't love a good television show

and I also just really like talking about co-viewing or co-watching. It is one of my favorite

developmental activities which involve screen time. I know I'm sure you're pretty shocked to hear

that but it allows you to diversify play but also promotes development if you do it right.

So sometimes parents will say well what's the point of sitting with my child and co-watching

if I want to do other things. You can still use screen time and have it be solo where they are

watching the screen on their own and you are in the room or you know if they're older fine

they're on their own. But I will go over tips on how to incorporate co-watching even after you

allow them to do solo watching. So you're going to get a few different tips in this and we actually

started co-viewing our co-watching with our Sun Ryan at around 14 months. Now the AAP recommendations

say that for screen time avoid under 18 months only use it for video chatting with family.

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