Objective: While many quantitative studies investigate the negative impacts of screen time, limited qualitative research has focused on parents’ perspectives on their children’s screen time and its impact on their social and physical development. This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived parents’ experiences with their children’s screen time, social interaction, and physical activities. Methods: A purposive sampling method was used to recruit participants. All six recruited participants were parents of a child attending occupational therapy in South Texas. All mothers completed a demographic survey. Then, a semi-structured audio-recorded interview was conducted orally. Results: Six interviews were conducted, and three themes emerged from the interviews: external barriers, positive perspective, and the impact of screen time on physical activity and social interaction. Conclusion: Overall, parents view screen time a beneficial because of its learning opportunities and use it as a means of childcare. Barriers to physical fitness included the weather, which resulted in increased indoor screentime. Another barrier was no physical activity guidelines knowledge. More research is recommended to continue understanding the impact of screen time.
