{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024819230017588432, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0017588430721125659, 'mean_word_length': 4.538961038961039, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
How do we measure childhood?

Childhood and adolescence are ideally about being loved and recognised and being given time to discover, play, learn and master new skills and abilities over and over again. Frustration leads to children discovering that they can create their own playgrounds and this actually prepares them for taking responsibility for their lives as they grow. What kind of adults do we want? Passive people, waiting to be told what to do or actively creating the future? I recall that when one of my children saw the first Harry Potter film, having read the book, he exclaimed ‘Oh, is that what Privet Drive looks like?’. It made me realise that he had created his own vision of what Harry’s family home – 4 Privet Drive – looked like while reading, something that I believe would not have happened if he seen the movie first. Fantasy and imagination are crucial to a child, as are learning, and finding comfort in the fact that they can master the creative process and that boredom and frustration can be channelled into doing something new and creative. This process takes time and can be challenging to watch, but parents have to be patient and confident that the child has the abilities they need to do this and not interfere. It is enough to stay close and not to offer them screen gadgets such as TVs, computers, tablets and smartphones. And parents should not hide behind a screen themselves! Over the last 10–15 years, our leisure time seems to have become more and more occupied by screens and gadgets of all kinds. Even very young children spend a considerable amount of time in front of screens. It is quite often an easy way out for parents, as the child is quiet, stays still and satisfied for the time being and does not complain. But the child does not complain, because it does not know what it is missing out on. The impact of screens, and the time they take from children and adolescents, has been discussed in studies (1,2). The effects of inactivity and changed behaviour are easy to understand and measure in conditions such as children being overweight or having cardiovascular disease or diabetes. All this is enough to take action and aim for less screen time. But how, and when, can we measure the impact of excessive screen time on childhood? And how much is excessive screen time? Are these relevant questions? I believe they are. Of course, older children, above the age of four or five, can play on screens, assuming they are given age-appropriate games or programmes. Older children can, of course, also learn and gain knowledge via screens, and screens have become an important tool in school. Children with certain disabilities also find that screens can be of great help, both in school and in enabling them to achieve a better quality of life. However, this does not directly suggest that children should spend unlimited hours in front of a screen. It is important to remember that, in general, children do not need screens at all. It is very unlikely that anything a small child learns on a screen today will be relevant when it is old enough to actually use the screen or computer in school or at work. Thus, the argument that children need to learn about computers and the Internet at an early age is, in my opinion, not true. On the other hand, there is much that a child needs to learn while growing, such as communication and language, walking, running, balancing, interacting with others and getting feedback in a real social context. These are things that cannot be learnt on a screen and things that need to be practised in order to be learnt during childhood. Screen skills can, in contrast, be learnt at any time later in life. Another issue about screens is how parents frequently bury their faces in smartphones or other screens, often in combination with headphones, which prevents communication with a baby or child that needs continuous feedback from their parent or inhibits the adult’s responses to the curious and talkative preschool child. And those are just two examples. When boys in a thesis study were asked what they would do without a computer, they said they would probably be outdoors more (3). The author summarised that the ‘computer is pizza, outdoor is spinach’. Catchy and maybe true, but children eat what adults serve them and it is the adult’s responsibility to make it appetising. Adults have to be ready to present alternatives to screens. An active lifestyle is good for children, as well as for adults, and lifestyle is something we learn from our parents. From this perspective, the study by Chiu et al. (4), which is published in this issue of Acta Paediatrica, is interesting. Children do as parents do. Thus, adults have to take the responsibility for ensuring that children are given time and space in society. It is a child’s right! Then, if their leisure time is divided between physical activities, friends, play and other activities such as reading, painting and screens, that is, of course, neither dangerous nor bad. How much time in front of a screen is OK? To begin with, we can apply the recommendations from the