Public-health nurses at the Langnes clinic in Tromsø raise screens from the home visit a few days after birth — sometimes before birth. NRK reported on 16 October 2026 from Linda Pedersen and Katrine Hermansen Iversen’s consulting room. The talk has become a thread through the whole clinic follow-up, not an occasional topic.

The national programme requires the “phones, screens and social media” item four times in five years: the 4-week group visit, 6 months, then the 2- and 4-year checks. The nurses say they raise it more often across the 14 standard visits. Pedersen said many families keep phones out in the waiting room and in the consulting room, and that they try not to judge, but to ask.

The Directorate of Health advises that, outside kindergarten, children under two should avoid screens. If they do use one, the advice is educational content, with an adult, at most 30 minutes occasionally, not before bed and not at meals. These are professional guidelines, not law and not individual medical advice.

The Helsesykepleierne NSF resource group — Astrid Midtsund, Ida Uldal — says the issue is also the adult’s screen: the signal “the screen matters more than me”. Leader Ann Karin Swang said national advice gives weight to the conversation with parents. Father Martin Bystad, on parental leave in Tromsø with 15-month-old Emilie, said the phone “pulls” at him, including for the parking app.

Pedersen, herself a mother, said children do what adults do, not what they are told. The guideline also asks adults to limit their own screens around children under two, not to use a screen as comfort, and to avoid background television.

This article describes clinic practice and a national guideline. It is not personalised paediatric advice.

Image: Diego Delso, Tromsø cathedral, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive building, not a photograph of the Langnes clinic.

Sources consulted: Tar skjermpraten oftere med foreldre: – Vi forsøker å ikke dømme — NRK; Barn under 2 år bør unngå skjerm — Helsedirektoratet.