191–200 of 296 posts
The solution to this problem is actively parenting your kids. Take them on hikes, start a hobby with them, bond, etc. Letting the internet babysit your kids is the precursor to internet addiction. If you put in the work, then you won't have to worry.
So what do you do in this case?
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We’re in a similar boat and have never set limits. Our two kids have learned to self moderate. They both like technology but get bored after a period of time and move on to other activities. We also encourage other activities with cub scouts, play dates, gymnastics, swim lessons and of course occasionally have to be strict with prioritizing homework. I give my partner credit for facilitating most of this. Maybe we’re…
For every one of these anecdotes there's another where the kid got unrestricted access and is now incapable of going anywhere or doing anything without having their tablet with them, and is chronically addicted to the screen at nearly every waking moment, to their extreme detriment in school and social encounters. I have a family member like this.
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For every one of these anecdotes there's another where the kid got unrestricted access and is now incapable of going anywhere or doing anything without having their tablet with them, and is chronically addicted to the screen at nearly every waking moment, to their extreme detriment in school and social encounters. I have a family member like this.
I think the more important thing is fostering your children to have other interests - when the electronics are given just to make a kid shut up it can eventually become their "real" parents. When parents are active and make an effort to show their children other activities and find what they're interested in, the electronics won't be as enticing. Maybe that requires a child having some built in proclivity towards som…
Yes technology will be there, but it’ll aid and further the other activities, NOT become an addition in itself.
One thing we did to further that is send the kids to a private school of like-minded parents. We have a robotics club, but no networked computers outside of that in the school. Might sound old school (it is), but if all the kids have are friends without technology, they won’t use it
Parent of three ranging from tween to college age. We have never had limits on anything. Screen time/content unrestricted. Probably dozens of times, maybe hundreds, we have had "the talk" about how there's a lot of weird shit in the world, internet included, and it's better to know about that stuff and how to deal with it than to create a temporary secure enclave at home where it doesn't exist. We especially didn't w…
Thanks for sharing. I don't doubt that it worked for you, but I wonder whether this is a good approach. You say you never had limits on anything. Say one of your kids tells you he wants to trying heroin a bit. Would you let him? Now, obviously mobile phones aren't as addictive as heroin and the consequences of failing to control yourself aren't as bad either, but they're still extremely addictive. They're addictive e…
| "Dad, what do you think about heroin?"
| "If you go near that stuff, you'll be grounded for a month."
| "Thanks, Dad." (proceeds to try heroin)
In the time I typed this, probably 1,000 kids around the world had the very same conversation with a parent about various difficult subjects including drug use. That's 1,000 missed opportunities for parents to have real conversations with their children.
I have a few thoughts about the rest of your comment.
First, you're defining "addiction" very broadly. It's hard to reconcile why your girlfriend is a "victim," but "literally every parent" on the playground was doing the same thing. At a certain point, behaviors become norms. If phones didn't exist, what would those parents on the playground be doing instead? Probably not heroin, but probably not work that society highly values, either. And nothing so extreme that it's my business to judge them.
Second, it's very difficult to address your "the question is really about addiction" point without conceding a false premise. My comment wasn't about how I deal with it; it was about how to prepare my children to deal with it. Which absolutely is about addiction, or rather about avoiding addiction. (To be clear, I'm talking about addiction in the classic sense that causes a person to make destructive life choices to feed their addiction, and absolutely not about the "addiction" that declares that there is a problem with a parent's manner of sitting on a bench on a sunny day in a park.)
If OP were asking how to stop mobile-phone usage, I'd have ignored the post entirely, because in my opinion that's a misguided goal. OP asked "do you take any precautions to help your children avoid falling prey to [internet addiction]?" That's a very different question. And my answer was to teach my children not to become prey.
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Hm, not sure about this, while I understand what you're saying, aren't you giving your kids the equivalent of mental heroin when giving them unfettered access to Youtube? I mean you can say what you want about it to them, I'm still not sure I'd give my kids unlimited access to junk and hope they're cool to just be ok with it? I had zero restrictions on my internet acess growing up, I was also told about excesses and…
Given the extreme mimetic learning in children, it is probably important if the child sees you stopping a process they guess/know you are enjoying. The confusion which leads from questioning the reinforcement can be a source of wisdom. If the child sees you, the parent, put down the device after a few minutes, not gorging on food, sleep, and so on, having self moderation, they are more probably to also develop it. Th…
Like for some kids, having to leave a fun play date at their friends house because they have school the next day is crushing enough but probably a good lesson in self moderation and preparedness. That's probably a simpler way to teach self-moderation rather than, here is a bag of cocaine, try not to eat all of it please.
"You see billy, there is a company who is out to get you by stealing all your attention and ruining your life by maximizing profits" is probably a bit complicated for a child.
Also I don't think adults are great at overcoming all their weaknesses, for example, I absolutely love chocolate, so much so that if it's in the house I wish ravish it. So what I do is, I don't have chocolate in the house and it's problem solved.
For some kids not having you tube in their face is probably similar to not having chocolate in the house?
Parent of three ranging from tween to college age. We have never had limits on anything. Screen time/content unrestricted. Probably dozens of times, maybe hundreds, we have had "the talk" about how there's a lot of weird shit in the world, internet included, and it's better to know about that stuff and how to deal with it than to create a temporary secure enclave at home where it doesn't exist. We especially didn't w…
Sure, this would be considered the "excess", but I'm not sure if it's the kind that children should be made to deal with at such an age in such high volumes.
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Given the extreme mimetic learning in children, it is probably important if the child sees you stopping a process they guess/know you are enjoying. The confusion which leads from questioning the reinforcement can be a source of wisdom. If the child sees you, the parent, put down the device after a few minutes, not gorging on food, sleep, and so on, having self moderation, they are more probably to also develop it. Th…
Wouldn't it be better to help a child learn self moderation without giving them such a strong addictive substance? Like for some kids, having to leave a fun play date at their friends house because they have school the next day is crushing enough but probably a good lesson in self moderation and preparedness. That's probably a simpler way to teach self-moderation rather than, here is a bag of cocaine, try not to eat…
There is a joke: how do you stop a 30 year old man from beating his wife? You hug him when he is 7. How do you stop a 7 year old from being a brat throwing tantrums for chocolate and YouTube? You control your chocolate/YouTube/etc. intake when they are 1 days old.
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Youtube has been essentially banned in my house after seeing the effect it had on my kids. The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. Sadly - especially given the huge amount of actually great content on Youtube - everything that it wants to show my kids is absolutely dogshit garbage. A bunch of Gen Z kids with obviously wealthy families just acting like idiots. I couldn't stand it a…
I largely agree, but I've not banned it. I just have explicitly told them they can only watch from the subscriptions we've curated. It requires monitoring of course, so they'll watch it on tv (Apple TV) when I'm present. My kids are young enough that they're never alone. Once they're not, I've been thinking if I can write a MITM proxy at home for youtube that somehow only allows content from explicit channels.