Picture this: you wake up in the morning to the ear-piercing sound of your screaming child. After wrestling her into her car seat and dropping her off at the babysitter’s house, you start your hour-long commute to work. After getting out of work at five, you pick up your daughter and feed her dinner. You’re exhausted, but she isn’t—she wants to play. However, you’re tired, you’re hungry, and you need time to yourself. You reach for the nearest gadget—an iPad—and hand it to her. As her little fingers play around with the screen, she goes silent, and your headache subsides. Peace at last.

Indeed, distracting your child while simultaneously teaching him or her to use electronics may seem like a smart thing to do. Who doesn’t love to kill two birds with one stone? On the contrary, many parents don’t realize the detrimental effects of these actions.

In this day and age, parents tend to justify their bad parenting skills by claiming to teach their kids about electronics. When parents plop a bright screen in front of their kids as a diversion, kids aren’t really learning the skills needed for healthy mind development. Instead, parents are just taking the easy way out. What they don’t understand is that pushing their parental duties to their slabs of circuits and plastic has an adverse effect on their children. Congrats, your two-year-old can play Candy Crush, but she doesn’t know her A-B-C’s.

The solution is simple: stop letting technology nanny your children.

It seems convenient to hand your child an iPad when you’re out shopping to keep them occupied. In doing so, small children are being exposed to programs and games that may be unsuitable for their age group.

Most television programs fail to teach the lessons that most parents attempt to instill within their children. Statistics from the University of Michigan Health System reveal that many TV shows are filled with stereotypes, violent situations and aggressive behavior, plus excessive junk food commercials that can lead to unhealthy eating behaviors.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, no child under the age of two should be watching any television, while children over two should stick to one to two hours of quality programming at most. Too much screen time may result in lack of physical activity as the child grows, and can interfere with basic tasks such as reading or doing homework.

However, children at these ages are spending double, even triple, the amount of time they should be in front of a television, iPhone, iPad or laptop screen. This can lead to negative health and social effects during adolescent growth.

Over exposure to technology can lead to countless health risks. The University of Michigan studies also show that electronic use may cause problems in the hands, eyes and spine. Being hunched over a computer in an uncomfortable position not only causes horrible posture, but also encourages scoliosis and back problems in young children. What seem like bad habits can easily lead to cataclysmic medical conditions in the future.

Vision problems are yet another side effect in children who overindulge in electronics. The longer a child stares at a giant television screen or laptop, the closer he or she is to developing nearsightedness. You’ve just spent $500 to occupy your child and now must fish out an additional $200 for a pair of glasses in order for your child to see the electronic screens.

Ever wonder why your toddler screams at late hours of the night? It could be because of hunger or a bad dream, but it’s most likely because you let him play on your iPhone a half an hour before you put him down for the night. Nighttime artificial light has been linked to poor sleeping cycles and could even lend itself to future cancer outbreaks.

Too much tech time can also disrupt the family dynamic. Imagine a family sitting around the dinner table, their hands in their laps, their heads down. Seem familiar? If you were to walk in on this scene 20 years ago, you’d have assumed they were praying before dinner. Now, it’s safe to assume each person is texting or playing on their iPhone. Dr. Gary Small, author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,” observed that the “brain is highly sensitive to stimuli, like iPads and smartphone screens, and it people spend too much time with one technology and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, that could hinder the development of certain communication skills.”

Children as young as five have iPod touches or iPads. When we were kids, we were lucky to get the newest Barbie or G.I. Joe. What’s next? Giving your six-month-old an iPhone to chew on instead of a teething toy?

Parents should strictly adhere to the recommendations set forth by the AAP. At the very least, they should monitor the amount of technology their child uses in a day. Not only can this prevent children from stumbling upon inappropriate programming, but parents can also ensure their child’s overall well-being.

Proper child development is imperative, and parents need to promote good habits now before it’s too late.