Parent Thread

Captain Suave said:

"No". The social comparisons and imprinting are cancerous for girls that age. I sympathize with the battle, my daughter is 11, but fight the good fight.

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My daughter just turned 12 and we are still fighting the good fight. I won’t even let her have YouTube in her phone. Doesn’t stop her from going to the website but I’m not opening the door at all.

Cad said:

We've tried the limiting screen time and getting them in activities and all that. As soon as they hit the age where they're able to decide for themselves, they seem glued to the phone. Don't know what to do about it really, seems like it's everyone and everywhere.

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Yes, even when they hang out with their friends they just all sit around on their phones. At least they’re talking to each other while doing it… I guess.

Once summer sports ended for my son it’s been a struggle for my wife to deal with his screen time. She has two brothers but they were never into video games like I was so she doesn’t get it. After he’s done playing outside with his friends he’s on the iPad. When she tells him to get off the iPad, too much screen time, he just goes downstairs and gets on the PlayStation or Xbox. She’s fighting a losing battle.

Cad said:

I'd actually rather they play traditional video games than sit and scroll on Tiktok or IG though or play mobile games.

I'd rather they watch movies, even dumb movies, because it requires them to pay attention to one thing for longer than 30 seconds.

It's not all the way, but hey its better. I made my 12 year old read books this summer too, although I basically had to stand over him. Little fucker FALLS ASLEEP at 2pm reading a book. He hasn't fallen asleep during the day since he was like 7.

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Similar theory for me. My kids have kindles and I provide them with unlimited books to read. They're both voracious and it's done wonders for them. They also play games, but only on the weekends and up until extremely recently they did it only with me as a group activity. My son's friends all started playing Valorant together, which I'm fine with. He and his cousin spent last weekend independently researching and toubleshooting UEFI BIOS and TMP Secure Boot settings on the cousin's computer so they could get the game running. That kind of self-directed education and tech empowerment is formative.

I'm fairly heavy-handed with technology restrictions. The kids have Chromebooks from school that we have limited control over, so I have the router set to whitelist devices by MAC address and their internet access is cut off from 9 PM to 7 AM. If/when they both have devices with mobile data they're going to stay outside of the bedrooms at night.

My son (13) has only just been given a phone this year because he's commuting to and from school himself. It's strictly a "communicate with Mom and Dad if you're out of the house" device and goes on a stand in the kitchen when he's at home. No social media apps, though we do give him free reign with google and YouTube with the understanding that we have access to his activity history and he should act accordingly. This has resulted in him looking up cooking videos and getting up early in the mornings to prepare hot lunches to bring to school, which is a byproduct I can live with.

It's not a controlled experiment, but the difference compared to their peers is stark. Both kids can look an adult in the eye and hold a conversation and they have their own interests and hobbies that they research and pursue in their spare time.