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The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

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Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#81

Post by BrazeBeefNoodle »

bg4 wrote: post #73
tboyd47 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the difference between the parent as a judge and a guide and the parent as a manager and secretary. My parents seemed to worry more about preventing kids from getting into trouble or making the wrong friends. My wife and I worry more about how to get them out of the house and make friends, period... and I hear this sentiment echoed every so often on HN (this being one of them). How do you get teenagers…

Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.

Which is ironic because statistically it's dramatically safer than 20, 30, or 40 years ago.

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#82

Post by adamnemecek »

l9k wrote: post #66
adamnemecek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what OP said. You can totally give them freedom while providing some guidance. Instead of siting in class, let them read things they are interested in.

Let them read things they are interested in? Yes But kids don't know much about the world. Their interests will change. They need to be introduced to many (basic) subjects even if they fail to see the long-term benefits of the tools they learn.

The alternative is ineffectively shoving shit down their throat?

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#83

Post by alasdair_ »

monkmartinez wrote: post #12
stinkytaco wrote: post #4

There's a certain irony in this. By putting restrictions on kids (no screens, digital downtime, etc), we expect them to become self-driven. This is a great idea in theory, but it also seems pretty likely that a kid will go to their friends house to watch Youtube videos, when I would just as soon have them (and their friends, if necessary) at my house doing that where at least I have some sense of what they are watchi…

I don't expect my kids to be "self-driven", in the sense of "productive" when I restrict screen time. They can literally do whatever they want... if that is mope around bored as hell, so be it. If that is digging a hole in the back yard, so be it. If that is getting into a little trouble somewhere down the street, so be it. If they want to read the latest "Diary of a wimpy kid", so be it. The only thing I am after is…

I definitely restrict "passive" screen time - especially TV, but also youtube that just autoplays stuff - but I have less of an issue with more interactive things.

An example: my six year old loves Algodoo (a physics simulator) and builds all kinds of crazy stuff in it. I have no problem with him building and creating things (not all day of course) - It's the passive viewing of content without thought ir interaction that bothers me.

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#84

Post by oreo81 »

organsnyder wrote: post #8
bubbleRefuge wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut the cable thinking that would make a difference, but youtube and Netflix have infinte content. Back in the days of broadcast only TV, you watch your show and its over, go play.

The main advantage to Netflix (and YouTube, with a Red subscription) is the lack of advertising. My kids probably see 1/20th the number of ads that I saw growing up.

I guarantee your kids see just as many if not more ads than you did growing up. They may not look the same to you but they're there. Seriously, if you think ads have decreased over time then you've completely lost the idea of what an ad is.

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#85

Post by deeg »

tboyd47 wrote: post #9
stinkytaco wrote: post #4

There's a certain irony in this. By putting restrictions on kids (no screens, digital downtime, etc), we expect them to become self-driven. This is a great idea in theory, but it also seems pretty likely that a kid will go to their friends house to watch Youtube videos, when I would just as soon have them (and their friends, if necessary) at my house doing that where at least I have some sense of what they are watchi…

For some reason, whenever I hear parenting advice (especially related to technology usage) and see that it's from someone my parents' age, I automatically stop listening. I feel like they are so far removed from the challenges of parenting in this decade that they have nothing to offer us. Not that our challenges are harder than theirs, but just that they're such a different set of challenges that we can't relate to…

I think you've stopped listening too soon. The exact circumstances have changed but the challenges are the same. For my parents the challenge was keeping me away from TV and video games; I would have played computer games for 24 hours straight if they had let me. Given the portability of devices today the physical challenges for you are different but the emotional ones are the same.

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#86

Post by tboyd47 »

BrazeBeefNoodle wrote: post #81
bg4 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.

Which is ironic because statistically it's dramatically safer than 20, 30, or 40 years ago.

Probably because no one goes outside! :)

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#87

Post by JamesLeonis »

whataretensors wrote: post #15

Look at reward signals. Elementary through high school is a little sliver of what a collapsed marxist society looks like - no positive rewards signals just negative arbitrary ones. I was programming at 8 but apparently to be "well rounded" I had to do all this other stuff that non-coders deemed important. Meanwhile there was no "safe base" for me or anyone else who grew up poor. But at least now I can also now see sc…

I'll bite.

The Western paradigm of education has nothing to do with Marxism and everything to do with Industrialization. Education is an industrial process that mass produces a literate workforce.

In the US, our Industrial Education takes raw materials (uneducated kids), refines them on an assembly line (K-12) by a workforce (teachers), bound to various Quality Assurance processes (SATs, ACTs, etc) that affect their pay, supervised by a central management bureaucracy (the school board) that results in a yearly harvest (Graduation) of brand new workers. This supply of undifferentiated but educated laborers met the demands of manufacturing.

inb4 Education is failing blah, blah, blah...

Previously the large amount of manufacturing demanded a large homogenized manual workforce. As manufacturing moved elsewhere, the market demand for this labor diminished. Like any other large corporation, Industrialized Education is going through a slow decline as demand continues to drop off for it's primary product.

As this general market declines, the market for specialized and refined labor increased. Higher Education is the industrialized refinement for specialization. The end result is a specialized worker commodity. The Industrialization metaphor is even stronger as many of these universities are actual corporations competing to deliver a product for their markets.

> I was programming at 8 but apparently to be "well rounded" I had to do all this other stuff that non-coders deemed important.

That's because you were a raw commodity being transformed into a finished product. You don't ask a car whether it wants to be red. Management didn't ask if you wanted to be well-rounded.

To put it more generally, this is the experience of a sapient being in the process of commodification.

> Forcing all the kids into assembly lines and scalping their autonomy is breaking people. It's taking away their ability to think.

That's the whole point. It's refining a raw product into a finished good.

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#88

Post by projproj »

zachlatta wrote: post #58
monkmartinez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect my kids to be "self-driven", in the sense of "productive" when I restrict screen time. They can literally do whatever they want... if that is mope around bored as hell, so be it. If that is digging a hole in the back yard, so be it. If that is getting into a little trouble somewhere down the street, so be it. If they want to read the latest "Diary of a wimpy kid", so be it. The only thing I am after is…

I deeply and thoroughly don't understand this mindset. Whether you like it or not, technology is part of growing up in the 21st century. It's not just an "outlet" or a place to waste time on YouTube, it's interwoven into everything in their lives. Their ability to gather information depends on it. Their social lives depend on it. Just as yours does. If you restrict access, you're pretending like a very crucial part o…

Assuming GP means "limit screen time" when they say "restrict screen time", then you can still have a healthy relationship with technology. A child with limited screen time will still know how to use a computer, phone, etc. Like most of us, the kids I know gravitate to tech. junk food. So unrestricted/unlimited access to screens would probably lead to an unhealthy relationship. And GP wouldn't be in bad company.[0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-... - Steve Jobs, Chris Anderson, and Evan WIlliams limit/limited kids' screen time [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/apple-ceo-tim-cook-dont-let-... (Speaking at Harlow College in the U.K., Apple CEO Tim Cook warned against “overuse” of technology, and said he didn’t want young members of his own family to use social media.)

Re: The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

#90

Post by Alex3917 »

brewdad wrote: post #62
Alex3917 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it's recommended that kids under age two have zero screen time has nothing to do with the content though, it has purely to do with whether the rapidly changing imagery is increasing the risk for ADHD and damaging their executive function or whatever.

I had always heard that it had to do more with the development of their eyesight. Young children need visual stimulus across a range of distances to reduce the risk of vision problems when they are older. It may by BS. I don't really know.

That might be true, but (iirc) it’s not the AAP’s stated reason for their recommendation.
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