If you prop up an iPhone in front of your toddler at cava, I’m judging the heck out of you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NP here. I’m with op. Maybe you don’t get a quiet lunch/shopping trip/stroller walk, but all that screen time at an early age is really bad for developing brains.

But what's great for kids is judgy losers that give their parents the stink eye

Sorry it hits a nerve. Nobody is perfect, I know I’m not either, but this is a very clear place where you can make a choice that can affect your child’s brain development, attention span, ability to self regulate emotions.

Girl I hate screens for kids. My kid's behavior vastly improved when we took away her tablet. You are preaching to the choir. But I don't think giving a random parent the stink eye for giving their kid a phone for 20 minutes is okay either, I think it's really rude and unhelpful behavior (and the parent doesn't notice but look, you're still stewing about it, which can't be healthy)

Wrong. We need to start judging these parents and make it socially unacceptable in our culture to give these kids screens. Hold each other to higher standards

+1
Teachers can confirm that children entering school today have, on average, much poorer language skills than they did 10 years ago. In addition, many are no longer able to play. Important skills for a successful school career are completely lacking.

The school day has changed too - my. kids don't have two long recesses the way I did. My kids only last year started using a real language arts curriculum where they have to read passages longer than a paragraph and write essays. My kids still don't have textbooks which sucks, but the things going on at school are also not supporting growing children with longer attention spans.

+1 has it never occurred to teachers that kid's behavior is bad because of the screen time in their classrooms?

You're twisting my post a little bit. I definitely do NOT think schools are the cause of children's bad behavior, I just don't think like the direction they went int he past 10 years. Thankfully, my kids' FCPS schools are trending away from computer use. I think they tried using the computers a lot for the couple of years after Covid and have realized it was a mistake. I have kids in ES and MS and have seen it in both places.

How is 20 minutes of screen time once in a restaurant reason for "judging the heck" out of parents but daily screen time at school is all good?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am well aware of the exceptions:

We only had a few minutes to talk and needed out toddler to be quiet.
Our toddler has XYZ diagnosis.
And on and on.

But the research is there and the pendulum is swinging the other way. There are few legitimate reasons to prop up a screen in front of your 13 month old at cava while you lunch with your partner. It’s 20 minutes tops.

Knock it off, people.

Hope you stepped up and took care of the toddler since you had so much extra time on your hands to judge.

I've had three toddlers, none of them were ever on my phone. There is something wrong with people like you who don't want to care for their children.

What is the difference between a kid on a coloring book while parents talk and a kid watching bluey while parents talk?

DP but one of them is a quiet activity, the other is annoying for other people in the restaurant. For the love of god, keep the volume off if you hand your children an iPad or phone.

I’m in the no judgment camp but it’s pretty clear that coloring has a different effect on brain development than watching Bluey. One is active, the other is passive. It’s a huge difference. There are a lot of studies that young brains process words spoken on screen differently than words spoken directly by a person in front of them. As a parent we all make decisions every minute about how to supervise their kids, but you should at least know that all the choices aren’t equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am well aware of the exceptions:

We only had a few minutes to talk and needed out toddler to be quiet.
Our toddler has XYZ diagnosis.
And on and on.

But the research is there and the pendulum is swinging the other way. There are few legitimate reasons to prop up a screen in front of your 13 month old at cava while you lunch with your partner. It’s 20 minutes tops.

Knock it off, people.

Hope you stepped up and took care of the toddler since you had so much extra time on your hands to judge.

I've had three toddlers, none of them were ever on my phone. There is something wrong with people like you who don't want to care for their children.

What is the difference between a kid on a coloring book while parents talk and a kid watching bluey while parents talk?

DP but one of them is a quiet activity, the other is annoying for other people in the restaurant. For the love of god, keep the volume off if you hand your children an iPad or phone.

I’m in the no judgment camp but it’s pretty clear that coloring has a different effect on brain development than watching Bluey. One is active, the other is passive. It’s a huge difference. There are a lot of studies that young brains process words spoken on screen differently than words spoken directly by a person in front of them. As a parent we all make decisions every minute about how to supervise their kids, but you should at least know that all the choices aren’t equal.

I think most young kid are talked at constantly all day, they hear plenty of spoken words.

[Anonymous]

Human beings in our current form have existed for about 300,000 years. Somehow they managed - even the toddlers - without screens for all that time.

Ask any teacher and they'll tell you that all the screen time has been a disaster for a child's normal development in recent years. Parents are creating little tempestuous morons by inflicting screens on small children. It's a parental fail. Parents are too lazy and selfish to engage with kids today. And schools and society suffer as a result of the awful parenting.

If you are habitually giving devices to under 5s, you are wrecking their little brains. I get it for a long airplane trip, but if it's normalized, you are doing things wrong and I feel bad for the kid. Because they are going to grow up to be distracted idiots with the attention span of a gnat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Human beings in our current form have existed for about 300,000 years. Somehow they managed - even the toddlers - without screens for all that time.

Ask any teacher and they'll tell you that all the screen time has been a disaster for a child's normal development in recent years. Parents are creating little tempestuous morons by inflicting screens on small children. It's a parental fail. Parents are too lazy and selfish to engage with kids today. And schools and society suffer as a result of the awful parenting.

If you are habitually giving devices to under 5s, you are wrecking their little brains. I get it for a long airplane trip, but if it's normalized, you are doing things wrong and I feel bad for the kid. Because they are going to grow up to be distracted idiots with the attention span of a gnat.

Do screens stop being harmful at age 5? Is that why screen use for "education" is ubiquitous in most schools?

[Anonymous]

best case scenario- the kid at the table next to you has a screen propped up so your kid watches over his shoulder while you get a relaxing dinner while not getting judged or feeling guilty.

Best dinner outing with a toddler thus far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brilliant SIL taught me about keeping a ziploc bag of crayons, coloring books, sticker books and a thomas the tank engine catalog for my toddler when we went to restaurants.
Always got compliments on how well behaved they were.
But no, it as the ziploc bag they needed to compliment.

Ha. We called them “sugar toys” - little dump trucks and the like that we would bring out at the table while waiting for the food. Open the sugar packets and have at it!

And make a mess for the restaurant staff! What a great example you’re setting! Well done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brilliant SIL taught me about keeping a ziploc bag of crayons, coloring books, sticker books and a thomas the tank engine catalog for my toddler when we went to restaurants.
Always got compliments on how well behaved they were.
But no, it as the ziploc bag they needed to compliment.

Ha. We called them “sugar toys” - little dump trucks and the like that we would bring out at the table while waiting for the food. Open the sugar packets and have at it!

And make a mess for the restaurant staff! What a great example you’re setting! Well done!

This. I judge parents who let their kids run amok, ruining the dining experience for everyone, more than parents who put on a silent show for 20 minutes to keep their kids occupied. It's a tool, just like everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am well aware of the exceptions:

We only had a few minutes to talk and needed out toddler to be quiet.
Our toddler has XYZ diagnosis.
And on and on.

But the research is there and the pendulum is swinging the other way. There are few legitimate reasons to prop up a screen in front of your 13 month old at cava while you lunch with your partner. It’s 20 minutes tops.

Knock it off, people.

For all you know the woman is with that child all day long and this is her chance to have a break and enjoy an adult conversation. The screen is then a short-lived treat for the child? 20 minutes. Not only are you ridiculously judgmental but you have a screw loose to post this kind of screed.

Is this a Gen Z parenting thing? It is literally your job as the child's parent to keep an eye on them all day long, even while having an adult conversation. Somehow our parents managed this and their parents this, but a 30 year old can't. GROW UP.

Lol no Boomer parents+ very much did not keep an eye on their kids all day long. That’s some revisionist thinking. Kids weren’t at the fast food place because mom probably left them at home with their gaggle of older siblings. Or they took them to an all night arcade so they could gamble in a casino. And the little girl who died was not the only kid left unattended back then … and “back then” was the mid-90s, meaning it was solid Millennials being left alone. https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/homicides/7-year-old-girls-murder-at-nevada-casino-still-haunts-20-years-later/amp/

This is a ridiculous point. I just this morning read a news story about two parents who are going to prison for dosing their kid with Benadryl so they could have ‘quality time’ with each other - sadly they lost track of who dosed her last so she died, bummer.

Abusive and neglectful parents have ALWAYS existed and there are plenty of them today, faces stuck in their phones playing candy crush and scrolling porn sites while their kiddos go unattended- or roast to death in the driveway in the family car.

Putting screens in front of toddlers for any length of time is bad parenting. Letting pre schoolers grade schoolers middle schoolers or high schoolers spend hours daily on screens is negligent. The science is settled already and we should all be working to limit and curb this culture of screens at home and school both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really hope that someday when you are not at your best and need kind strangers to give you grace that they do, OP.

If that happens, when you reflect on it, I hope it helps you become better.

Your attempt to come off as empathetic is incredibly misplaced. Societal standards and boundaries are ok, and attempting to keep them in place isn’t being “worse.” In fact, what you’re doing is just leading to the degradation of culture. If someone needs an exception, fine - wtf do you care if you’re being judged by a stranger if it’s a one-off? My son as a toddler once had to go to the bathroom at a park with no restroom and I let him go behind a tree. It was an exception to societal standards—I’m not advocating for public urination to become socially acceptable, and doing so would be disgusting, not emphatic.

[Anonymous]

Pissing in public affects other people. A woman exposing their kid to screen time doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brilliant SIL taught me about keeping a ziploc bag of crayons, coloring books, sticker books and a thomas the tank engine catalog for my toddler when we went to restaurants.
Always got compliments on how well behaved they were.
But no, it as the ziploc bag they needed to compliment.

Ha. We called them “sugar toys” - little dump trucks and the like that we would bring out at the table while waiting for the food. Open the sugar packets and have at it!

And make a mess for the restaurant staff! What a great example you’re setting! Well done!

We always brought our own mat and cleaned it up ourselves before we left. I don’t have it in me to let other people clean up our messes. It’s how we were raised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have kids in kindergarten who don't know how to peel a banana. They kind of swipe with their finger over it and expect the peel to disappear. And parents who put their children in front of screens in restaurants do the same at home. So don't tell me it's just for 20 minutes.

This is the most important post on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brilliant SIL taught me about keeping a ziploc bag of crayons, coloring books, sticker books and a thomas the tank engine catalog for my toddler when we went to restaurants.
Always got compliments on how well behaved they were.
But no, it as the ziploc bag they needed to compliment.

Ha. We called them “sugar toys” - little dump trucks and the like that we would bring out at the table while waiting for the food. Open the sugar packets and have at it!

Rude, wasteful and gross. Who does that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brilliant SIL taught me about keeping a ziploc bag of crayons, coloring books, sticker books and a thomas the tank engine catalog for my toddler when we went to restaurants.
Always got compliments on how well behaved they were.
But no, it as the ziploc bag they needed to compliment.

Ha. We called them “sugar toys” - little dump trucks and the like that we would bring out at the table while waiting for the food. Open the sugar packets and have at it!

Rude, wasteful and gross. Who does that?

You’re a riot.

Answer - many creative, resourceful people in the good old days before toddlers (like yours, obviously) became screen zombies!