Reply to Raising your kids screen-free (or minimal screens) -- experience from parents with older kids?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I agree with you but there’s a big gap between knowing that and dealing with a 13 year old girl crying that she has no friends and is so lonely because all the girls make plans to go to the mall or movies or hang out at someone’s house via texting or WhatsApp or whatever and she didn’t get invited [b]because she doesn’t have a phone [/b]and no one will put a mom onto the text chain.  Maybe the rich folks in Silicon Valley don’t have that problem because their teens have servants who plan their social calendars?  I dunno.  But I’m raising kids in the world I live in, and I think there’s very little that’s black and white about any of this.[/quote]

Well, the Silicon Valley folks I know send their kids to screen-free private schools, so I'm guessing they socialize their kids with like-minded parents. They probably also plan to involve them with sports, music, theater, etc. Things that take up hours after school and give you a real life basis for relationships.

To some extent that is what would need to happen for your child to have a community. I agree with you that it's not black and white. However, I think if my 13 year old was crying because all her friends were out late drinking with 16 year old boys and she had no life because she couldn't go, I'd be OK with that.

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Not sure how you made the leap between 13 year olds wanting to hang out at each other's houses and 13 year olds being out late night drinking with older boys. [/quote]

If they are real friends they will be willing to text her on a non-smart phone. Or call the house phone number and ask her if she is around. Or give her a heads up at school. Or drop her an e-mail. If they don't care enough about having her there enough to use the millions of getting in touch that everyone nowadays has, maybe they aren't really her real friends.

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How can they text her on a non-smart phone when she doesn't have a phone?  And what does "the millions of ways of keeping in touch that everyone [b]nowadays[/b] has" mean if not technology/screens? [/quote]

No one said anything about not having a phone. We're talking about all the time that gets sucked on apps, social media, web browsing, etc. as well as the culture that goes along with people socializing mainly on platforms instead of in person.[/quote]

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