Digital Babysitters: Because Who Needs Parents When You’ve Got YouTube?

Screens are supposed to be tools — not pacifiers with WiFi and hypnotic nursery rhymes.

Once upon a time, families sat down to dinner and talked.

Now? It's a table of glassy-eyed kids mouth-breathing in unison to the brain-melting sounds of “Yes Yes Vegetables” while mum adds fake lashes to her Shopee cart.

Welcome to parenting in the age of buffering — where emotional connection has been outsourced to cartoon pigs and looping EDM lullabies.

Let’s call it what it is: screens have become the new pacifier — except this one doesn’t fall on the floor. It just slowly unplugs your child from reality while keeping you from having to actually parent for the next 17 minutes.

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Cocomelon Is Not a Calm Corner — It’s a High-Speed Roller Coaster With a Creepy Smile

We need to talk about Cocomelon.

Because if Satan had a production budget, it would look like this.

Flash cuts every 2.3 seconds.

Jingles that sound like nursery rhymes on crack.

Characters with giant dead eyes and zero plot.

“Shows like this overstimulate young brains and teach them to expect constant novelty — not real-life calm,”

warns Dr. Min Yee, a neuropsychologist who has probably sacrificed her will to live watching JJ sing about flossing.

And you wonder why your kid screams like they’re being exorcised when the screen turns off?

They are — from dopamine withdrawal.

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“But It’s Just While I Make Dinner!” — Sis, It’s Been 3 Years.

Yes, we get it. You needed a break.

You wanted five minutes to cook. Or breathe. Or scroll TikTok in peace.

So you passed them the tablet. Once. Then twice.

Now your child can’t eat unless there’s a screen three inches from their face and JJ whispering sweet nothings about bananas.

This isn’t “screen time.” This is screen dependence with a side of behavioural meltdowns and social delay.

And hey — don’t look so shocked. You trained them this way.

Every time they cried, the screen appeared like magic.

Now you’re dealing with a child who thinks food is only edible when served with pixels and Peppa.

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The Screens Aren’t the Problem. You Are.

Not you specifically, okay — but yes, you specifically.

It’s not about villainising technology. It’s about how we’ve normalised replacing parenting with YouTube autoplay.

Your child doesn’t need constant entertainment.

They need boundaries. Boredom. Eye contact. And yeah — actual interaction with a real-life human that doesn’t buffer.

“Parents have become co-dependent on screens,”

- Dr. Alya Kamaruddin, a parenting psychologist.

“It’s not just the kids zoning out anymore. The adults are gone too.”

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A Radical Idea: Dinner Without Devices

Just try it.

Take away the tablet. Turn off the phone.

Watch your child blink awkwardly at you like they’re coming out of a coma.

And then — brace yourself — actually talk to them.

Yes, it’ll be weird. They might ask questions. About your day. About their broccoli. About why JJ isn’t here.

But that awkward silence? That’s real connection waiting to happen.

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Final Word

If the only way your kid eats dinner is with an iPad in front of them,

you didn’t raise a child — you programmed a screen-addicted cyborg with ketchup on their face.