Parents embrace '90s summer trend, trading screens for free play

CBS News posted a segment Wednesday, June 24, 2026, on how parents can recreate elements of a ’90s summer, tapping a growing backlash to constant digital engagement. The trend pushes families toward bike rides, community pools, sprinklers, disposable cameras, lemonade stands and other mostly screen-free routines, with Emily Oster, the founder and CEO of Parent Data, discussing what parents can incorporate.

The appeal is easy to understand. For parents wary of screen dependence, the idea of an old-fashioned summer suggests more unstructured play, more independence and more room for children to figure things out without a device in hand. In the wider conversation, that means biking around the neighborhood, stopping at the library, or letting the day stretch out without a minute-by-minute schedule.

But the nostalgia has limits. Susan Mosley, a parenting coach in Atlanta, said a full return to a ’90s summer is not realistic, because children today live in a highly digital, connected world. That matters for families that cannot simply swap work hours for long afternoons at the pool or neighborhood playdates and still need structured summer camp or childcare.

Lizzie Assa, an educator, warned that the trend can go too far when it suggests camp or other scheduled care is somehow less valid. NBC4 Washington and TODAY quoted Assa urging an “unscheduled” summer and saying, “let kids get bored.” Her point landed most sharply for working parents, for whom a screen-free ideal can sound less like guidance and more like a judgment on the realities of paying for care and keeping a household moving.

The screen debate is not new inside Parent Data. Oster has previously discussed the issue with Michael Rich, whom Parent Data describes as a pediatrician, child health researcher and children’s media specialist, and she has said the tone of that conversation was “pretty negative on screens,” adding that “less is better than more.” The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken a more nuanced line, saying screen guidance should focus on the quality of digital-media interactions, not just time limits. That leaves the current ’90s summer wave somewhere between evidence-based parenting and a polished memory of a childhood that many families could enjoy only when money, schedules and neighborhood safety lined up just right.