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The Case for the “Self-Driven Child”

scientificamerican.com

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

#191

Post by biswaroop »

wvenable wrote: post #102
zachlatta wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a computer at a young age in the 80's and started programming in early elementary school. I also have a young child who is absolutely absorbed in computers, youtube, etc. I understand how much their collective social lives revolves around it. But even all the time I spend on computers, I still find the experiences vaguely disturbing. The effects on mental health are immediately obvious -- a few hours of "screen…

This is interesting: the difference in 'screen time' a few decades ago versus today. Is the incredible productization of screen time a recent phenomenon? Could we improve screen time by restricting the access large social media companies have to our brains? Can we convert, or perhaps return, the computer from an interactive television to a digital canvas for hackers?

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

#192

Post by io23h89y23hj »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7
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…

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.

Anecdotal, but this smells like BS theory.

I grew up with nothing but a fuzzy PBS affiliate in very rural America in the 80s. Spent my time reading, building circuits and outdoors exploring. Get diagnosed with ADHD because I didn't want to do homework.

Both my kids got quite of bit of baby einstein and super simple songs in before they were two, and both are now a few years older, doing basic arithmetic, drawing shapes, and would build with LEGO or train tracks all day if we didn't have them go outside.

ADHD is one of those "We have no quantitative/causative insight as to what the deal is, so let's call a bunch of stuff ADHD, and fling theories at the wall to keep funding coming in."

Perhaps there are a lot of kids where the on-rails cultural approach we have is beneath their skills. I found public school to be a huge joke and waste of time. Dropped out high school as soon as I could, and am 40, near having enough saved to retire on $150k/yr (the only upside to the startup world; easy money).

I think the reality is we have no idea, but need to be convinced we do, and so we just case. It explains all the other historical delusions we built societies around in the past, but have since realized to be nonsense.

Eventually, future humanity will look back on today and laugh at the notions kicked about on HN and elsewhere as naive. But we sure believe.

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

#193

Post by doctorstupid »

majormajor wrote: post #165
mmjaa wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. (Parent here, checking in..) My kids get very limited screen time, and are expected to fill their life with art and activity that does not involve, at least not directly, cheap electrons. Expected, because its what we, their parents do by way of example. And I'm damn proud of my kids now. They're the ones pointing out how their high-school is taken over by mobile-phone-zombies, utterly un-interesting and use…

> And I'm damn proud of my kids now. They're the ones pointing out how their high-school is taken over by mobile-phone-zombies, utterly un-interesting and useless peers. When I was in high school I thought my peers ware un-interesting and useless too. :D I've been struggling, lately, to figure out a way to be able to tell "different" from "worse." Shit we did, because we had nothing better to do: * drive around racin…

At least you weren't just passively consuming. As monkmartinez might say, you were making the decisions and interacting with the physical world. If you wanted fun you had to make it.

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

#194

Post by Kluny »

tboyd47 wrote: post #49
zwieback wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.

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…

There's no place for them to go anymore. My solution (since I don't have kids yet) is to try to live in, or make "places". Ie agitate my city to build plazas, public gathering places and walkable neighborhoods in the hopes that my kids will get to enjoy them when they're old enough.

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

#195

Post by guy98238710 »

Ironically, the book, including the cheesy title, fits in a range of parenting books telling parents how to arrange their children's lives, making children an object rather than the subject once again.

Psychologists (and related specialists) could use more humbleness given the sad state of the science of psychology. Parenting advice, especially one argued in such biased way, is inevitably crude. Parenting is more nuanced, kind of like a conversation, always taking different path, shaped by family circumstances and objectives of everyone involved and frequently taking unexpected turns.

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

#198

Post by lr4444lr »

cortesoft wrote: post #186
lr4444lr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, we may be able to develop single-ride autonomous flying vehicles that will at a moment's notice be able to take you from point A to point B and no one would ever have to walk from anywhere to anywhere again outside. That doesn't mean I would be happy in that world with my child never having learned what it means to hike up a mountain and see the vista by earning it.

Did you drive to the mountain to start the hike? People from 200 years ago might say, "I can't believe this person has never learned what it means to load up your horse, ride 50 miles to the mountain, climb it, and earn the view of the vista" I am not saying there isn't value in outdoor activities and climbing, but I find it interesting that we set the level of technology that we had as a kid as the 'baseline' for a…

Point taken. I'll bite the bullet and admit that there is indeed probably something lost when I have to use a modern machine to get from where I live to the experience of pristine nature I crave. Something almost tragic, as if my "normal life" is unnatural or lacking in something primally good for me, which I have to "visit". But to not have experienced it at all, like not being unplugged from technology for a long stretches, would I think be stunting in a far worse way.

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

#199

Post by leetcrew »

nv-vn wrote: post #172
vilmosi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> So, yeah. Its an epidemic. Kids don't need technology How will they get interested in technology then. I suspect a lot of HH readers got into tech by actually using it first, either websites or games or whatever.

As a teenager who's into tech, this is how I feel every time I read these comments. When I was first learning to program, I didn't get support. I had parents complaining about how I use the computer too much. Had they been any more assertive, I wouldn't have been able to continue down that path. From the outside, people like to say "screen time" as if it's all one thing and all of it's bad. But we've seen studies sho…

I'm in my twenties now but I had a pretty similar experience as a teen. it wasn't until I was in college easily crushing my CS courses that my parents stopped criticizing the amount of time I spent on the computer.

if they keep giving you shit, you could always try showing them entry level software engineer salaries on glassdoor.

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

#200

Post by Retra »

zwieback wrote: post #16
tboyd47 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.

"You'll understand when you're older" is something I heard from my parents a lot as a kid. And now that I'm older, I understand just how full of crap they were about that. I thought they were selfish and trite then, and they're no less selfish and trite today.

The basic pattern is that anybody who lives their life carelessly peddling slogans is an idiot.

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