Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guilty of defaulting to an iPad as a babysitter from time to time, but my kid is happy, has friends, scores in the 99th percentile on MAP tests, and plays multiple sports. They've also learned a lot of random but cool stuff on YouTube Kids, especially interesting science. It's not ideal, but probably not much worse than the bad TV I watched in the 90s.

There’s a difference between occasionally handing your kid the iPad as a babysitter and letting them constantly be on screens.

The vast majority of parents are not "letting them constantly be on screens." Every single parent I know works hard to limit screens in some way. Some more than others but nobody I know has zero limits.

Do you ever leave your house? All around you are young kids on screens in places where they should be interacting with others or observing the world. I saw a four year old holding the phone in both hands and watching something while walking on a sidewalk yesterday. Kids on phones at restaurants. In grocery stores. At parks. Most parents are not judiciously using screens.

Why don’t you interact with your own kids instead of scrutinizing strangers? You’re not making a good case, you know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guilty of defaulting to an iPad as a babysitter from time to time, but my kid is happy, has friends, scores in the 99th percentile on MAP tests, and plays multiple sports. They've also learned a lot of random but cool stuff on YouTube Kids, especially interesting science. It's not ideal, but probably not much worse than the bad TV I watched in the 90s.

There’s a difference between occasionally handing your kid the iPad as a babysitter and letting them constantly be on screens.

The vast majority of parents are not "letting them constantly be on screens." Every single parent I know works hard to limit screens in some way. Some more than others but nobody I know has zero limits.

Do you ever leave your house? All around you are young kids on screens in places where they should be interacting with others or observing the world. I saw a four year old holding the phone in both hands and watching something while walking on a sidewalk yesterday. Kids on phones at restaurants. In grocery stores. At parks. Most parents are not judiciously using screens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guilty of defaulting to an iPad as a babysitter from time to time, but my kid is happy, has friends, scores in the 99th percentile on MAP tests, and plays multiple sports. They've also learned a lot of random but cool stuff on YouTube Kids, especially interesting science. It's not ideal, but probably not much worse than the bad TV I watched in the 90s.

There’s a difference between occasionally handing your kid the iPad as a babysitter and letting them constantly be on screens.

The vast majority of parents are not "letting them constantly be on screens." Every single parent I know works hard to limit screens in some way. Some more than others but nobody I know has zero limits.

Do you ever leave your house? All around you are young kids on screens in places where they should be interacting with others or observing the world. I saw a four year old holding the phone in both hands and watching something while walking on a sidewalk yesterday. Kids on phones at restaurants. In grocery stores. At parks. Most parents are not judiciously using screens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guilty of defaulting to an iPad as a babysitter from time to time, but my kid is happy, has friends, scores in the 99th percentile on MAP tests, and plays multiple sports. They've also learned a lot of random but cool stuff on YouTube Kids, especially interesting science. It's not ideal, but probably not much worse than the bad TV I watched in the 90s.

There’s a difference between occasionally handing your kid the iPad as a babysitter and letting them constantly be on screens.

The vast majority of parents are not "letting them constantly be on screens." Every single parent I know works hard to limit screens in some way. Some more than others but nobody I know has zero limits.

Do you ever leave your house? All around you are young kids on screens in places where they should be interacting with others or observing the world. I saw a four year old holding the phone in both hands and watching something while walking on a sidewalk yesterday. Kids on phones at restaurants. In grocery stores. At parks. Most parents are not judiciously using screens.

Anonymous wrote:

In 2024, caregivers reported that children age 8 and younger spent roughly the same amount of time with screen media as they did in 2020 (2:27 vs. 2:24 daily). Screen time varies significantly by age: Children under 2 years old average one hour and three minutes daily, and 2- to 4-year-olds spend two hours and eight minutes. Those age 5 to 8 use screens for about three and a half hours daily (3:28).

Boys spend over 30 minutes more on screen media each day than girls (2:38 vs. 2:07). This includes more time watching television and videos (1:36 vs. 1:19) and playing video games (:45 vs. :29).

Screen use also differs by income and ethnicity. Children from households earning less than $50,000 per year spend twice as much time with screen media as those from households earning $100,000 or more per year (3:48 vs. 1:52).

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2025-common-sense-census-web-2.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guilty of defaulting to an iPad as a babysitter from time to time, but my kid is happy, has friends, scores in the 99th percentile on MAP tests, and plays multiple sports. They've also learned a lot of random but cool stuff on YouTube Kids, especially interesting science. It's not ideal, but probably not much worse than the bad TV I watched in the 90s.

There’s a difference between occasionally handing your kid the iPad as a babysitter and letting them constantly be on screens.

The vast majority of parents are not "letting them constantly be on screens." Every single parent I know works hard to limit screens in some way. Some more than others but nobody I know has zero limits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With my oldest, I was very good about screens. I engaged with him, I very consciously helped him learn independent play, and after he turned 2, I let him watch about 10-15min a day- like, one Daniel Tiger storyline as a treat after dinner. Then when he was 3.5, I gave birth to my twins, and suddenly there was one of me, two infants, and a preschooler who only went to school three days a week for 2.5 hours a day. My preschooler started getting closer to an hour of screens a day- but still just Daniel Tiger or a similar cartoon, played on the TV (no tablet). Then covid came, and I was helping my kindergartner navigate virtual kindergarten entirely on a chromebook and I had twin 2 year olds who had the energy level of twin tornados and there were not any preschools that were open for me to send them to to get a break. And my kindergartner needed me to help him learn to read and write, and my twins were off the chain and we couldn't even go anywhere. So that's when the tablets came in. And now it's a habit! We aren't as bad as the parents some of you are describing but yeah, honestly, those twins are now first graders and they come home from school and want to play mario kart or want to watch the lego movie and that's what they are used to. I don't say yes every day obviously. But they are NOT good at independent play and they spent a great part of their early years with a mom who was frazzled, teaching kindergarten on a stupid laptop to a crying 6 year old, and begging them to quiet down just for a few minutes and letting them watch Blippi on my phone so my older kid could unmute his stupid laptop and read his sentence aloud to the class or whatever.

Yes this was years ago! But the habits linger and they become hard to break. That's all I'm saying.

But teachers told us kids are resilient so your story is clearly completely implausible s/

Kids with resilient parents ARE resilient. Kids of DCUM whiners and complainers? Not so much.

Anonymous wrote:MYOB. There's no right answer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With my oldest, I was very good about screens. I engaged with him, I very consciously helped him learn independent play, and after he turned 2, I let him watch about 10-15min a day- like, one Daniel Tiger storyline as a treat after dinner. Then when he was 3.5, I gave birth to my twins, and suddenly there was one of me, two infants, and a preschooler who only went to school three days a week for 2.5 hours a day. My preschooler started getting closer to an hour of screens a day- but still just Daniel Tiger or a similar cartoon, played on the TV (no tablet). Then covid came, and I was helping my kindergartner navigate virtual kindergarten entirely on a chromebook and I had twin 2 year olds who had the energy level of twin tornados and there were not any preschools that were open for me to send them to to get a break. And my kindergartner needed me to help him learn to read and write, and my twins were off the chain and we couldn't even go anywhere. So that's when the tablets came in. And now it's a habit! We aren't as bad as the parents some of you are describing but yeah, honestly, those twins are now first graders and they come home from school and want to play mario kart or want to watch the lego movie and that's what they are used to. I don't say yes every day obviously. But they are NOT good at independent play and they spent a great part of their early years with a mom who was frazzled, teaching kindergarten on a stupid laptop to a crying 6 year old, and begging them to quiet down just for a few minutes and letting them watch Blippi on my phone so my older kid could unmute his stupid laptop and read his sentence aloud to the class or whatever.

Yes this was years ago! But the habits linger and they become hard to break. That's all I'm saying.

But teachers told us kids are resilient so your story is clearly completely implausible s/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up watching TV all the time in the late 90s - early 2000s and I turned out fine as an adult.

Not the same. At all.

Agreed. I teach kindergarten and the longest attention span for any kid’s movie is about 15 minutes. Kids can’t even get halfway through a Disney or kid’s movie anymore. They can’t follow a plot. They rarely read for fun. I’ve had grades 3-5 in the after school program for years and hardly anyone wants to borrow my books anymore. It’s sad.

I found that taking away my kid's iPad helped her behavior and attention a ton. Have you considered not using screens in your classroom for a day to see what happens?

As far as reading, the kids aren't borrowing books and don't like reading because they haven't properly learned to read due to poor choices by school district leaders and the education sector. I know it is tempting and fun to bash parents though.

They watch movies during indoor recess. Teachers aren’t on duty then so we aren’t choosing to put them on. We don’t use screens much. It takes forever to get kids logged on.

Our students read well for the most part but they have little to no desire to do it. Nearly every student in my after school group reads at or above grade level but they say they’d rather play on their tablet than read at home.

Jfc is this common in schools? In K at my school they have children play with toys indoors during recess

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up watching TV all the time in the late 90s - early 2000s and I turned out fine as an adult.

Not the same. At all.

Agreed. I teach kindergarten and the longest attention span for any kid’s movie is about 15 minutes. Kids can’t even get halfway through a Disney or kid’s movie anymore. They can’t follow a plot. They rarely read for fun. I’ve had grades 3-5 in the after school program for years and hardly anyone wants to borrow my books anymore. It’s sad.

I found that taking away my kid's iPad helped her behavior and attention a ton. Have you considered not using screens in your classroom for a day to see what happens?

As far as reading, the kids aren't borrowing books and don't like reading because they haven't properly learned to read due to poor choices by school district leaders and the education sector. I know it is tempting and fun to bash parents though.

They watch movies during indoor recess. Teachers aren’t on duty then so we aren’t choosing to put them on. We don’t use screens much. It takes forever to get kids logged on.

Our students read well for the most part but they have little to no desire to do it. Nearly every student in my after school group reads at or above grade level but they say they’d rather play on their tablet than read at home.

Jfc is this common in schools? In K at my school they have children play with toys indoors during recess

Depends on the age of the teacher. Older teachers will have a toy collection and then sing the clean up song when it’s time for the kids to put them away. Fresh out of college teachers are putting on youtube on the smart board. Its basically a perfect correlation with age.