New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- Tulika Rajwade is a schoolteacher in Pune, with a six-year-old daughter. Her husband, Anish, is a work-from-home father. Their child's lunchtime coincides with Anish's peak meeting hours. So he hands her the spare phone, puts on the animated series PAW Patrol on YouTube autoplay, and leaves her to make her way through her food at a pace matched by the playlist. "it's just easier that way," Anish says. "She's glued to the screen. Otherwise, it's running around the house and just trying to get her to sit in one place first."

While Tulika isn't the happiest about such screen parenting, she says it's become an indispensable part of raising a child. "I mean, what do you do? There's only so much she can play all by hersel...