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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

#451
post #242

This thread exercising various mental gymnastics to find other causes for her behavior honestly reminds me of a bunch of climate change deniers arguing why human activity has nothing to do with atmospheric heating. Being cautious with assuming causations is usually a good idea - but it falls flat when we know the causal chains that are at work. In the case of climate change, we know for a fact that humanity is releas…

This comment exercising various mental gymnastics to find nefarious causes for a teenager's changing personality... Every generation of parents thinks their kid is the smartest and then they become teenagers and suddenly they're moody and want to do things that their parents don't approve of. That's the basic fact underlying this. Any argument you make about kids changing when they become teenagers needs to have this…

"literally everything."

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

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

#452
post #277
post #239

> 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 bat…

Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another c…

30 years ago, kids had hobbies, there's wasn't much to compete. Legos, collecting stamps/baseball cards, catching bugs, building models, photography, racing home build cars, sports, even things like just reading the encyclopedia, etc. Even libraries weren't that well stocked, I think I read every sci-fi book at my local library.

Now there's literally billions being spent on "free" games, "free video", "free" social sites, etc and trying every video, audio, vibration, trick in the book to make them more addicting. It's a trap, it encourages vanity, consumerism, poor body image, etc. I think the best thing you can do for kids these days is make sure they have a healthy amount of time offline.

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go outside. Explore the neighborhood. Ride your bike. Read a book. Practice your cello. Tinker in the basement. I may be old fashioned, but Minecraft strikes me as faux-creative. It's not something you get "better" at. That's just my reaction, having watched it done. It puts you in a state of flow without actually flowing anywhere.

My question was intended as a direct question to parent poster. If that's what you want your kids to be doing, then that's what you should be doing. Your kid wants to be just like you. They watch everything you do, and they will find their own way to do what they think you are doing. So, want your kids to go outside? Go outside. Want them to read? Read. Want them to practice cello? Practice cello. Want them to learn…

I did all of those things.

From my experience and observation of other parents and kids, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they want to be like you, sometimes the opposite.

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

#454
> My daughter doesn’t return home from school until 6:30 pm and still has to eat, bathe, and get ready for bed.

Uhm... There was a period in my life where I had to work part time and go back to school and even that only took 11 hours per day including a 30 min commute both directions. This girl is doing this in her teenage years...

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

#455
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…

> School is exhausting. Between rising unnaturally early (which leaves kids tired), rushing and bustling kids on their daily commute, most of the daylight hours blocked for school then homework when you get home I will point out though that, if one is inclined to argue that school should prepare children for adult life, it sounds like this system is a pretty good mimic of the working life any given child is likely to…

No it doesn't. The only way to prepare for adult life is to experience adult life early on. Experiencing more school life is the exact opposite of that.

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

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if the iPhone were heroin Yeah, but its rather obviously not heroin. "Imagine if X were Y" isn't really an argument to support "We should act as if X were Y, or at least similar". What needs to be presented is a reason to believe that X is, in fact, like Y.

How is it so obviously not heroin? I, a fully-formed and functioning adult, feel the pull in my brain. I was addicted to cigarettes in my 20s and I've had unhealthy relationships with numerous other drugs and video games that I've (mostly) managed to pull myself away from, after years. The feeling of "checking your notifications" and "scrolling through twitter" on your phone are remarkably similar to the compulsion f…

Each particular video game gets old and boring really quick. You need a constant supply of new games to stay "addicted" your entire life, which is exactly the opposite of how an addiction for a physical substance works. You never stop taking drugs unless you somehow can taper off the dosage. This is one of the reasons why switching from smoking to vaping and quitting vaping is easier than quitting smoking. You have control over your dosage and a lot of unclean crap is taken out.

Edit:

Not getting access to clean drugs is one of the biggest reasons why addicts suffer from health problems and have trouble reducing their dosage. Small portions of harder drugs and random substances that are optically identical are mixed into drugs and strengthen the addiction beyond what the primary ingredient can do.

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best formula I have observed is that obedient, self disciplined children tend to have obedient, self disciplined parents. I agree and hope people don't take this in a defeatist way. I've found that the biggest impact you can have on anyone's behavior (adult or child) is to set the example. Kids can smell hypocrisy a mile away, and besides, they only know how to act the way the see. Work on yourself, and your ki…

> I've found that the biggest impact you can have on anyone's behavior (adult or child) is to set the example. I agree in principle, but I find that that doesn't map very well to the digital world. This past Saturday, I spent about six hours staring at a screen. My kids did too. I was making music, an act I find creative, meaningful, and intellectually stimulating. They were mostly watching YouTube videos of people p…

Ok, so why did you not make music together with your children if you don't want them to watch Minecraft videos? It feels like you wasted an opportunity there. Blaming your kids for not knowing how to make music is pretty weird.

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

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I started off with an extremely primitive locked down programming environment. It's called lua and I used it to mod games.

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a girl doing OnlyFans is making money.

Turning that into a career seems like a moonshot, making it comparable to other "achieve celebrity" plans young adults may have (become a movie star, become a famous youtuber, become a famous rockstar, etc) I think in general these aspirations shouldn't be shat on, but young adults with these aspirations should probably be gently guided in more realistic directions.

Turning it into a career is difficult, not because it's hard to get into. Rather it's hard to stay there because your attractiveness is a finite resource that is running out eventually.

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video editing has nothing to do with being an influencer lol. That is a very transferrable skill to a lot of industries.

Video editing is a useful skill in exactly one industry...

So is software development, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Or basically every profession ever.
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