Forced Into Screens

[Anonymous]

Our current solution with a 6 year old is to do it jointly. Screen time is family time. We watch nature documentaries and shows like Bluey together. If we search for a YouTube video of something we watch it together. We do the daily wordle together and have done some puzzle games on the iPad. We haven’t introduced video games yet but plan to play them with our kid. We will see how long we can keep it going this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Screens are an integral part of our lives. They are prominent in how we learn, work and play. Artificially restricting them isn’t the virtue some think it is.

Part of the screen issue is the garbage that fills kids' heads. I'm now reading a parenting book published 1992 and they had same complaints then.

My solution has been to be strict about what's on the screen. Kids are age 9, 4, almost 2. DH introduced us to Studio Ghibli and we've bought many if not most of their movies on YT. This is my kids' ad-free corner of the internet. They're surprisingly content watching familiar movies many times, and I'm at least content that the artistry, story telling is showing them positive role models, healthy relationships, community life, friendship, love, etc. etc, etc.

Some favorites, FYI tips for others to look up:

Howl's Moving Castle
Princess Mononoke
Nausica
My neighbor Totoro
Pom Poko
Kiki's Delivery Service
Castle of Cagliostro
Castle in the Sky
Spirited Away

and for very sad, heavy one - Grave of the Fireflies

Sorry we don’t watch anime

PP here. Same here, I known what you mean. When I saw anime books on my husband's shelf, it was such a turnoff. And 99.99% I never did take any interest in to this day. But he I'm grateful that he introduced us to the classics - Hayao Miyazaki, Shigeru Mizuki, Isao Takahara. These are life-long artists, masters of their craft. Not whatever mass market anime impression I still hold and frankly, like you, have no interest to look into.

And the neat thing about the above works is they're so high quality that don't age. These are 30, 40+ year old works that are still excellent today and far better than most of what's served up to kids now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of comments on here about people who just don’t do screens/ video games for their kids.

I just don’t know how that is possible. I really hate screens for kids but realized by resisting I was making our DS (9) the weirdo in his class as one do the few kids he knows that doesn’t play video games. Most of his social life revolves around discussing games/ tv shows. If there are kids who don’t get screens - where are they? Even school is screens all day!

We limit video games to 1-2 hours a week and do 30-45 mins a day of other tv/ videos.

With the modern world I just didn’t see another choice. We do lots of other stuff ( sports, outings, reading, board games) but some times the kids want video time and now it’s here to stay. I do feel them pushing for more and more. I know it’s addictive and i hate to see their little brains getting wired towards addictive type behaviors.

Part of me wants to go cold turkey and cut the screens. But I am not sure I could do that to my kids. I honestly felt like moderation was the key- but now I am not so sure.

I really feel myself longing for the 1990s before cell phones and when video games weren’t so “good”.

One thing my kids don’t do is “nothing”- I feel like when I was a kid I would spend a few hours every day just chilling in my room or just reading. Maybe we have our kids so much attention they can’t live without it.

We do zero interactive screens. Its about the dopamine hit they get from instant satisfaction. Neither of us can manage 30 minutes a day or anything like that (we did try). So they get nothing. They abused games, sm, etc so they get nothing now. This means long car rides; plane rides; snow days; good behavior; etc.

TV they can have unlimited time but only after school work or other chores are done. We sometimes say "one show and then do the one chore and then on show and one chore". But most of the time its get all your school work done or chores.

TV during the week is realistically only one or two episodes because we push for strict bedtimes and no TV 30 min before bed.

Adults weren't raised with screens and we know how to balance things (or at least we know what we should do to balance). They need to learn that.

If they are at friends we tell the parents no games or screens. They are there to play and interact. If they are going to stare at screens and not talk then no one needed to drive anywhere. The other parents like this from what they tell me. The kids not so much.

We are considering getting a gaming system in a year or two that would be limited to the weekends and based on behavior.

My sister has 3 kids and their interactive screen time is different by age. She gives 5 minutes extra because DS walked the dog without being told; or got a good grade. I just can't. When we come over she has them put their devices away but you hear them asking (I cleaned up after my little cousins I can get 5 more minutes). She is able to get good behavior though and she takes away minutes for behavior; whining; etc. She has two kids who love gaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Simple: you parent. That means you are the adult in the room.

You are in control. Don’t like how that sounds? well too bad. Grow up. Be the one in control; ie - a parent.

And the rest of society? Screw society. Let the rest of society give their kids unlimited screen time and stay up as late as they want; those kids can mop the floors at 7/11 and struggle in community college.

In my house? No social media. More than half the U.S. states attorney generals have filed lawsuits, in federal court, suing social media giants because:

- social media is known to be harmful to children, and
- social media is intentionally designed to be addictive to children.

Hey, if you know better than half the states attorney generals? If the research magically doesn’t apply to your kid?? GREAT! Unlimited social. Tell us how that works out for you in 20 years.

Priests abusers children. When are people going after them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have girls and neither has expressed desire to play video games although I’m sure they’d get sucked in if we introduced it. They don’t use YouTube. They do some kid shows but not many, although they wish they had more. One thing that keeps the older one (8) from asking to play video games is that she has said that it feels like that’s almost entirely what the boys in her class talk about ALL the time, and she thinks that’s weird (no idea if her assessment is accurate). She also has wonderful teenage cousins who talk to her about the consequences of too much screen time based on what they see at their school.
She is definitely not one of the popular girls though and has said that she sometimes doesn’t know about things the kids are talking about. Doesn’t seem to bug her much b/c I’ve told her to let me know and we can look into them together, but she has little interest in doing so.

Gamer girl here. I love videogames since I was a kid! Played tomba 2, clock tower, super Mario, sonic, they all gives me nostalgia.
And I have a great job, I earn so much money and buy action figures and I do like to dress pretty too

[Anonymous]

Thanks to TV I learned what was rape

Thanks to that I could say Stop to my older brother. He was touching me and wanted more. I said I will tell my parents and he stopped. But kept catcalling me when I was on high school.
I was very reserved and pushed away my friends. And I was poor and my mom was single mother. Dad was a cheater and barely saw us.

My mom doesn't believe me or says to forgive.
I don't forgive. All the bad I go through is because of that trauma. I feel sick. I started to have orgasms early age because of my brother. Sometimes I wish I wasn't born. Maybe being an orphan was better. I feel the pain of others.

But don't worry. I'm happily married now and have money, a roof and go on vacations. Not everything is sad. There's good days too

[Anonymous]

I was a kid, it started when I was in elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in San Francisco, and a lot of people here do very minimal screens. My oldest has never played a video game at all. They talk about tons of stuff besides shows and video games.

Look to make friends with people who work in tech - it's well known we are low tech with our kids.

Yeah, like Philip Morris or Pepsi execs who warn their own kids away from cigs/soda but are happy to profit off the addiction of other people’s kids. Way to go, pat yourself on the back.

Wow how little you know about tech. There is tech to make you addicted to social media and tech to process your credit card and make sure the traffic lights work.