How To Promote Positive Nutritional Habits In Children

If you have heard that the rules around mobile phones and electronic devices in early childhood settings have changed, you are right. If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, these changes are already in effect.

Here is a plain-English breakdown of what changed, why it happened, and what it means for your family.

Why Did the Laws Change?

The changes were introduced as a child safety measure. In 2025, Australia’s Education Ministers agreed to amend the Education and Care Services National Law to address concerns about the potential for personal devices to be used to capture, store, or transmit images of children in care without authorisation.

The intent is straightforward: children in early learning settings deserve an environment where their privacy and safety are actively protected.

What Changed Nationally

From 27 February 2026, amendments to the national Education and Care Services National Law took effect across Australia. Under these changes, educators and staff who work directly with children are restricted from using personal electronic devices in care settings.

Before this, from 1 September 2025, all early childhood education and care services nationwide were required to have written policies in place addressing the use of digital devices.

What Changed in NSW

NSW moved ahead of the national timeline. The Education and Care Services (Supply, Authorisation and Use of Devices) Order 2025 took effect on 6 November 2025, applying across NSW’s 6,000 or more early learning services, including long day care centres, preschools, and family day care.

Under this order, educators and staff must use service-issued or service-authorised devices rather than their own personal devices when working directly with children.

What Counts as a Personal Device?

The definition is broad. A personal device is any device owned by an individual (not the approved provider) that is capable of capturing, storing, or transmitting an image. This includes:

Mobile phones
Smartwatches
Cameras and tablets
iPads and laptops
Hard drives, USB drives, and memory cards
Wearables such as camera glasses

Who Does the Ban Apply To?

The restrictions apply to anyone working directly with children at a service, including permanent and casual educators, students on placement, volunteers, contractors, and allied health professionals delivering programs on-site.

Parents, carers, and other visitors are not covered by the ban. In NSW, parents and carers remain free to use their personal devices during drop-off, pick-up, centre visits, and events involving their own children. There are also authorised exceptions for essential purposes, including emergencies and health or disability support needs.

What About Screen Time for Children?

These new laws specifically address staff device use, not children’s screen time. Screen time limits for young children are not mandated within childcare regulation at a national level.

The relevant guidance comes from the federal Department of Health and Aged Care’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend no screen time for children under 2 years, and no more than 1 hour per day for children aged 2 to 5 years. These are health guidelines, not regulatory requirements.

What This Means for Your Family

If your child attends a childcare centre in NSW, their service is already required to operate under these rules. Any educator or staff member working directly with your child should not be using a personal device to take photos or videos. Only service-authorised devices should be used for that purpose.

If you have questions about how your centre handles digital devices or image capture, you are well within your rights to ask. Most services will have a written policy in place that covers exactly this.

At Clovel, the safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is at the heart of everything we do. If you would like to know more about how we support your child across our centres, we would love to have that conversation with you.

Healthy eating and healthy living often go together. Nurturing healthy eating habits in your children can go a long way in helping them maintain a healthy weight, good physical growth, and build higher immunity levels. It is essential that parents practice good eating habits themselves so that your children imbibe them naturally. Healthy eating habits developed during childhood mostly stay during adulthood, enabling a healthy lifestyle.

If you want to keep a tab on your child’s health parameters, contact your child’s health care provider who can evaluate your child’s weight, height, and explain Body Mass Index (BMI). You can then decide whether your child needs to gain, lose, or maintain weight and what dietary changes are required.

How To Help Children Maintain Healthy Weight

Two important aspects of healthy eating relate to controlling the quantity of food, sugar, and fat intake. It is not at all difficult to reduce fat consumption in your child’s diet to promote a healthy weight. Just start serving:

Lean meats
Whole grain bread and cereals
Low-fat or non-fat dairy products
Poultry without skin
Healthy snacks like fruits, nuts, and vegetables
Reduce soft and fizzy drinks and beverages
Reduce salt in their diet.

You can consult a registered dietician for nutrition counselling if you want to get a proper idea about selecting and preparing high nutrition content foods for your family.

Other Approaches

Some steps to develop healthy eating habits in children:

Ideally, food choices should never be dictated but can be guided. Easy access to healthy foods can lead to eating healthy. Stock your house with a variety of nourishing foods to help children choose ones that promote health. As far as possible, avoid stocking chips, sugary juices, soda, etc. Water is the best drink for children at meals.
Children tend to eat and drink very fast. Encourage slow eating habits in your children to help them detect hunger and satiation.
Make your meals a time for family togetherness. Only when the meal time is pleasant, fun, and chatty, will eat food without stress. Avoid scolding children or talking tough at meal times. That that will only increase their stress, and they will avoid eating together, or they may finish their meal faster and leave the place.
Children love to snack. But snacking can lead to overeating and affect hunger at mealtimes. If you plan appropriate and nutritious snacks for their snack times, their appetite at meal times will remain unaffected, making them eat full meals. Children will happily eat tasty, nutritious, and attractively plated snacks. An occasional treat of chips, cookies, cakes, and ice-creams at home and parties will make them accept their nutritious snacks without resistance.
Nutritionists also suggest setting family goals for deserts and soda, and weekends are the ideal time to allow children an occasional treat.
Hydration is a poorly recognised part of good health. Keep your water bottles filled and encourage children to drink enough water during the day. Try to wean them away from soft drinks and sodas, which are linked to obesity among children.
Make it a practice to eat meals at the table in the dining room or kitchen, so that meals and TV watching never happened in tandem. When children are allowed to watch TV while eating, it often leads to overeating, as they ignore signs of
Make sure their food is balanced when they eat out. Check their school lunch programme and also pack nutritious food for them. Keep the nutrition aspect in view while eating at restaurants.

If you want to know more about math activities for pre-schoolers at Clovel Childcare and Early Learning Centres, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Just give us a call at 02 9199 0294 or fill in this contact us form.

Thanks for reading,
Clovel Childcare
1300 863 986

Lyn Connolly

Founder and Company Director

Lyn Connolly is the Founder and Company Director of Clovel Childcare & Early Learning Centres, a family‑owned group of eight centres across Western Sydney established from her first service at Merrylands. Active in early childhood education since 1977, she also serves as President of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW, representing providers in state and federal consultations, media, and public hearings.

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