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My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

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Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#231

Post by watwut »

in_cahoots wrote: post #168
rekabis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the poorest. Especially if you cannot find a job that pays more than daytime child care costs. Then it’s cheaper to have a parent stay at home, despite the poverty level, because any daycare available costs more than any available job brings in.

That's true for young kids, but not preteens. By that age they're old enough to stay home alone for a couple of hours after school. Hence the term 'latchkey kid'.

Return to employment after years at home can be quite hard. Not saying impossible, but options are severly limited and plus it is massive adjustment.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#232

Post by DennisAleynikov »

NuSkooler wrote: post #206
sergiomattei wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blanket statements are easy but reality is much more complex. iSH, code learning apps, Codecademy via the iPad browser, iBooks, Library Genesis for getting any book in existence for free, Duolingo, cloud coding. I could go on... There's many, many ways of learning through these devices.

> There's many, many ways of learning through these devices. You can artificially lock down the device and expose only such things, but default mode is YouTube and Roblox type stuff.

youtube and roblox can both be educational tools

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#233

Post by anonu »

This resonates with me as the father of young children. The older one is two and already is a pro at using my phone. She knows where all the apps are and easily switches between youtube, netflix, spotify, various games.

Initially I was amazed at the exploration and learning. So I let it happen. Of course, its easier to just have no phone time with a 2 year old. So I sympathize with parents of older kids where the dynamic becomes one of peer pressure.

Not really condoning phone use with teenagers and I'll play the devil's advocate here: If "everyone is doing it" - is that OK? Why have your kid be the outlier in these situations?

I actually had to look up James Charles, referenced in the article. James is 21. The iPhone came out in 2007 - so presumably James has had access or been around a smartphone well before his teenage years. Yet, the videos are creative and immensely popular. The point is, creativity is less in physical space and more in cyber space now...

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#235

Post by DennisAleynikov »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #199
sergiomattei wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blanket statements are easy but reality is much more complex. iSH, code learning apps, Codecademy via the iPad browser, iBooks, Library Genesis for getting any book in existence for free, Duolingo, cloud coding. I could go on... There's many, many ways of learning through these devices.

Is anything you listed even remotely on the same level as "assembly language and pascal with s3m libraries to program a game", what does Duolingo have to do with being able to understand and prod the workings of the machine in your hand. Still a locked down black box designed around attention algorithms and I'm getting tired of pretending it's not.

as someone who finds the kind of programming possible on iOS extremely primitive, I still find your comment disingenuous. Kids even creating and uploading tiktoks, or messing around with their friends creations in roblox or even trying Swift Playgrounds is miles more useful than... learning pascal and assembly to make the most boring game ever.

kids have access to magic these days, while algorithmic abuse is rampant, thats not an iPad's core proposition.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#236

Post by Brendinooo »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #212
parksy wrote: post #45

My dad smashed my computer around the laundry (where the computer lived) with my cricket bat because I was "playing games" instead of studying. "playing games" was using assembly language and pascal with s3m libraries to program a game. With my kids I've felt the rise of anger when they want to be autonomous and pursue their own interests. I mean, I was taught that parenthood is subjugation. But just like my dad coul…

Sorry to hear this, my friend. There are some real princes out there. My stepfather refused to let me take piano lessons, because those would turn you into a "sissy" (e.g., Liberace). Yeah, I'm still angry about it.

I started my kids on an app called Simply Piano, and am trying it out myself. I loved music my whole life but never wanted to take piano lessons; now I do, so I'm trying it out.

Give it a shot!

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#237

Post by lordnacho »

sequoia wrote: post #87

Buried lede: > My daughter doesn’t return home from school until 6:30 pm and still has to eat, bathe, and get ready for bed. Perhaps it is not just the iPhone, but school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention that is preventing her from pursuing creative interests? As a homeschooling parent whose kids have been in school at times, I see this first hand. School is exhausting . Between rising unnaturally ea…

I see some light in this new situation though. My kid has had to remote into his classroom during the March lockdown, and again recently. It seems to work just fine. The teacher can still check on his progress, but when he's at home there's no commute and he can spend his free time as he likes. Meals can also be taken in front of the screen. Slow at eating lunch? Keep eating.

At the same time, he has an actual school that he can go back to next week, and he can catch up with friends again.

This sort of flexible schooling could be the thing for the future.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#238

Post by saiya-jin »

analog31 wrote: post #106
greysonp wrote: post #73

A lot of the comments here seem to be saying that (1) kids getting addicted to phones is no different than getting addicted to TV, books, etc, and that this is just the latest iteration of a complaint parents have had for generations and (2) this person is a bad parent. I used to agree with (1), but lately I'm inclined to think that this time, it really is different. Very different. And the primary reason is that unl…

"Bad parent" can be applied to anything that goes wrong, and is an empty assertion. And it seems to be asymmetrically applied to mothers, not fathers. Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat." This bias in the literature makes it look like there are some brilliant parent…

> Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat."

I agree with everything you say except for this. We have friends (2 kids now) where mom is like that. On first glance all is perfect, she is perfect mom that manages to do so many things, all is great etc. Apart from actual reality once you know them better and you know where to look. At the end they are no better than rest of us, in some aspects far from it (this kind of behavior stems from some deeper issue(s), which tend to manifest in various ways). And all this charade starts to look pathetic pretty quickly.

Be honest, open, laugh at your fails, we all went through it, its normal. It will get you further with almost everybody including yourself. Definitely with me.

/ If I misunderstood what you meant then sorry for the preaching.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#239

Post by lqet »

> I realize with horror that she’s spent nine hours on the phone that day. She was only awake at 11.

> My daughter doesn’t make collages or jewelry or sew anymore. A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone.

> Getting her to make a card for a family member — something she once did for fun — is like getting her to clean her room

> Yet still, each day is a battle over only one thing.

> And little by little, our daughter has chipped away at our rules and resolve.

Congratulations, your child is now in puberty.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#240

Post by objectivistbrit »

parksy wrote: post #45

My dad smashed my computer around the laundry (where the computer lived) with my cricket bat because I was "playing games" instead of studying. "playing games" was using assembly language and pascal with s3m libraries to program a game. With my kids I've felt the rise of anger when they want to be autonomous and pursue their own interests. I mean, I was taught that parenthood is subjugation. But just like my dad coul…

Have you read the book "Running on Empty" by Jonice Webb? It describes a pattern she identifies as "childhood emotional neglect" (a possibly misleading label). The pattern she describes usually includes a combination of lack of attention, lack of an emotional connection between parent and child, and lack of appropriate responses to problems the child faces.

Your comment made me think of that book, and I certainly found it very useful in overcoming some of the lingering consequences of my odd upbringing. My mother was not abusive, but was alternately neglectful and controlling, and I only recently found out that she was continuing patterns from her own childhood. I highly recommend the book if your situation is at all similar.

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