Trump’s HHS tells kids to ‘touch grass’

HHS advisory – A new advisory from the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services urges children to put down smartphones and “live real life,” but critics say it leans too heavily on limits without confronting the real-world pressures that drive families

For parents who are already stretched thin, the federal government’s message can land like a lecture—less guidance than guilt.

This month. the Department of Health and Human Services released a new surgeon general advisory warning about the adverse health effects of children and screen time. The language is strikingly direct. Officials repeatedly urge kids to “live real life,” telling them to put down their phones and “be in the moment.”.

The timing is harder to ignore. The advisory typically would be issued by the Surgeon General, but there is still no Senate-confirmed surgeon general 18 months into President Donald Trump’s second term.

Screen time advice has existed for years, and this isn’t the first attempt to push back on how much time children spend on devices. Earlier this year, a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledged concerns about children and excessive screen time.

In the HHS advisory, Trump administration officials encourage people to do what they call “the 5 Ds”: Discuss, do, delay, divert and disconnect. The guidance also offers recommendations for schools, policymakers and technology companies.

Yet one criticism stands out: none of the recommendations, as described in the advisory coverage, targets the reason families and children are using screen time in the first place—or offers the kind of support parents say they need to reduce it.

Erin Erenberg, CEO and co-founder of the nonprofit maternal rights organization Chamber of Mothers, argued the warning comes without the basic supports families say they lack.

“This warning comes without the most basic systemic support structures families need to thrive in place: a federal paid leave policy. affordable and accessible childcare. and a real commitment to ensuring that mothers in this country are well. ” Erenberg said. “We’re not against guidance on screen use. We’re against the idea that guidance alone is enough.”.

In Erenberg’s view. the systems aren’t working for mothers—so the burden shifts to individual families trying to manage digital life with no safety net. She pointed to the United States as the only high-income country. and one of only a few countries in the world. without a national paid family leave policy. She also cited the lack of paid sick leave for parents in the U.S. which she said would allow caregivers to handle children’s illness without worrying about lost income.

The cost of childcare, she said, adds another force families can’t simply ignore. Federal data, as cited in this report, show that full-day childcare for one child costs about 9% to 16% of a median family’s income in the United States.

Erenberg’s frustration was blunt: “We’re not against guidance on screen use. We’re against the idea that guidance alone is enough.”

She said the point isn’t to shame parents—it’s to push for structural change. “We want to encourage moms to see that the systems are not working for them. and to recognize what is possible when we come together to call these systems out and make change. ” she said. “Moms are done accepting that we are the solution to every problem we didn’t create.”.

Her argument connects to another concern raised in the same discussion: that families aren’t choosing screens for fun so much as being pulled into them.

The article notes that apps and devices are intentionally designed to keep people engaged. It points to a field of study called behavior design. also known as “persuasive technology.” It also references a recent jury finding in a lawsuit in which Meta and YouTube were found guilty over claims that the tech companies built addictive social media platforms that harm children; the companies disagreed with the verdict.

The HHS advisory advises technology companies to design products for “user well-being” and to “prioritize safety and privacy,” and it pairs that with screen time limits aimed at children—limits that can be hard for families to follow, even when they want to.

The suggested boundaries include none for children under 18 months old, less than 1 hour per day for children under 6, and 2 hours per day for children between 6 and 18 years old.

Dr. Courtney Blackwell, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said the limits can backfire by turning parenting into another source of stress.

“We know from past research and work with parents that definitive limits can make parents feel bad or guilty or like they are a bad parent if they let their children engage with screen time,” Blackwell told Salon.

She said that while the advisory frames potential harms as a reason to follow limits, the result can be emotional damage rather than behavioral improvement.

“But the realities of parenting make it nearly impossible to avoid. and having a major authoritative body suggest that not abiding by the limits will harm their child will just reinforce unnecessary parenting stress and negative feelings of being a ‘bad’ parent when they do let their children engage with digital media. ” Blackwell said.

Blackwell also questioned how confidently the advisory connects screen time to health outcomes. The research on children and screen harms, she said, is “inconclusive,” and the impact of digital media on kids’ health and well-being varies.

“The advisory only talks about the ‘harms’ and misses all the nuances,” Blackwell said. She pointed to evidence that screen use isn’t automatically harmful. citing “50 years of research on high quality educational television like ‘Sesame Street’ showing that preschool children can and do learn from digital media.”.

She added that time spent on screens isn’t necessarily the issue correlated with well-being. In her view, what matters is the child, the content, and the context.

Instead of rigid caps, Blackwell said families should follow the AAP’s 5 Cs, which she described as building off Lisa Guernsey’s “3 Cs” of child, content and context. The AAP policy, as quoted in the report, emphasizes that guidance caregivers can use to manage screen time more carefully.

“Every child or teen develops their own unique relationships with media based on their temperament, strengths, and how platforms personalize content,” the AAP policy states.

Blackwell said the HHS advisory includes strategies, but they are framed in a way that treats media itself as inherently harmful.

“The advisory could have more strongly recognized the realities of parenting in today’s media-saturated world and the fact that digital media is a normal part of growing up today,” she said.

For parents watching federal officials urge “live real life. ” the clash is clear: the advice may tell families what to do with phones. but it doesn’t fully address the pressures that make those phones a daily fixture in American households—nor the more complex reality that screen time can be educational. harmful. or harmless depending on circumstances.

And while the advisory encourages a handful of steps—Discuss, do, delay, divert and disconnect—it leaves many families wondering what help they’re supposed to get once the guilt arrives.

Trump administration HHS surgeon general advisory screen time children smartphones “live real life” “the 5 Ds” Chamber of Mothers Erin Erenberg Northwestern Courtney Blackwell American Academy of Pediatrics childcare costs paid family leave behavior design persuasive technology Meta YouTube