Falstaff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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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.
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Parent Thread
- Thread starter Hatorade
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Hateyou
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I’ve gained nothing but intelligence, wisdom and worldliness from my time on the internet thank you very much.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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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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You gotta provide some pretty powerful alternatives. We took our son to an indoor water park recently and he seemed like a "normal" kid for the first time in a while. He wanted to do the non screen stuff.
I'm honestly not sure what to do either. Especially since I spend a lot my working and free time in front of a computer.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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We do that with activities, but as soon as they're out, its right back on the phones. I know exactly what you mean I sit at the computer most of my day as well. While I tell them to stay off screens...
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Falstaff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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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.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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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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Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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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.
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Hatorade
A nice asshole.
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Yup, fucked my daughter up even when we delayed it as long as we could. That said she is 18 now and doing well.
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fred sanford
Sanford & Son: Owner, Operator
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Whenever my son (12) has a friend stay over the night, they generally play games all night. Honestly though, I used to do that with my friends too at that age. What really rustles my jimmies is one of the kids is completely disconnected. They'll start out playing games together online but then this kid will end up just doing other random stuff on his phone separately while my son continues to play the game. At that point, what's the point of staying over? The kid's attention span is completely shot. A couple of times during the evening I got him to put the phone away and he ended up being an ADHD spaz that drove me nuts. I gave up and let him zone out on the screen the rest of the evening.
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Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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Fortunately by 8th grade my son seems to have found the other normal kids, but I swear to god a couple of friends he has brought over in the past have brain damage. When he was in 4th grade one kid came over and instead of dropping him off his mom invited herself in and sat in our living room for four hours. My wife and I obviously felt obligated to socialize, and several times while we talked her son would stop what he was doing, stick his head down the hallway, and shout "HOW DO I WATCH YOUTUBE ON THE TV???" over the adult conversation without waiting for a break. When I told him "You can't, I don't connect my TV to the Internet," he was completely uncomprehending and proceeded to re-ask the question in the same manner several times over the next two hours.
I was really glad when my son decided this kid wasn't entertaining to be around. (And all of this ignores the obvious question of WTF had the mom been doing with her time if the kid acted this way.)
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Hatorade
A nice asshole.
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I may have spoke to soon, found out my daughter is Asexual. I mean what dad doesn’t want his daughter to not have sex but no idea how to relate to this. Sex is like the best thing in the world and for her to have no interest…don’t know brothers. She appears to be and tells me she is happy. This is wild.
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Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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My big worry about this stuff is would she have been asexual if it wasn't "in" to have 300 genders/sexualities.
Of course as a parent myself I'd be supportive
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Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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Obviously the only course of action as a parent is to be supportive, but especially at that age it most likely means she just hasn't met anyone she really feels strongly about. I was friends with my now wife for several years before we started dating and she had expressed a similar disinterest in relationships (labels weren't a thing then). Now 20+ good years and two kids with her and she's erm... quite the opposite of asexual.
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Dunno where you live but I doubt she's actually asexual, more likely she's just grown up around boys that are either too emasculated to show interest in a girl or too scared of getting accused of sexual assault to make a move. As long as you aren't letting her major in gender studies it should sort itself out, likely to the point that you will kinda wish her asexual phase had lasted longer.
Furry
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I can’t say that I fully understand the ace mentality, but it’s fairly common with gen z, and this is probably a fair assessment. It’s definitely a social signal they send to each other, and more than something most of them truly believe.
That said, the mental illness levels have been higher than average where I’ve seen this going on, so I wouldn’t be completely unconcerned.
Hatorade
A nice asshole.
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She has had a boyfriend for like a year, they talking about moving in together. Hence my surprise.
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Asexual but been in a relationship for a year and talking about cohabitating?
That's setting off so many alarm bells I can't even tell which ones are ringing.