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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”

#201

Post by Retra »

bobthechef wrote: post #13

"And since the 1960’s, we’ve seen a marked rise in stress-related mental health problems in children and adolescents, including anxiety, depression, and self-harm." "this problem has been increasing since the 1960’s because our culture has increasingly valued extrinsic and self-centered goals such as money, status, and physical attractiveness, and devalued community, affiliation, and the pursuit of meaning in life" A…

Since the 1960's our ability to communicate with each other has significantly expanded. It's natural for everyone to end up a neurotic perfectionist when you can see every day what other people across the world are doing. Not so much when you only saw your friends and family in town and at home; your standards would be much lower then.

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

#202

Post by jimmaswell »

photojosh wrote: post #182
LrnByTeach wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this "no more than N hours a day" is that - For parents it is hard to implement N hours/day on long term basis ( parents may be able to do for a week or month) - The parental control tools are too narrow in scope, good ones cost $10/month - on top of all this, you do not know what they are doing in those N hours/day , using 50% time for FB/Snap etc.. - It is ironic in this day and age of ML/Deeplearn…

I've got kids in upper primary school now, and trying to think through all this carefully. Our current rule is that you can have an hour of screen time for every hour of reading, music practice, etc, and after certain chores are done. Plus the screen time has to be at an appropriate time - for instance first thing in the morning and last thing at night are no-gos. They're currently on a ban until the end of the week…

Here's my anecdote. My parents tried to limit video games (but not tv, they weren't very rational) to some amount of hours a day. Only result was that I hated it, it made me resent them at the time, and I'd do what I could to get around it. I don't think I'm an iota better off for it. They'd try to pull the same nonsense with the computer too which ended up being what got me a successful career. It was detrimental if anything and made me not respect them because I could tell all along it was unsubstantiated BS that somehow video games and computers were "bad" for you. I highly recommend just letting them sort out what they want to do with their time. A restriction of a half hour before bed maybe, to not disrupt sleep, fine, but what does the morning have to do with anything?

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

#203

Post by jimmaswell »

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…

> a few hours of "screen time" has very obvious negative implications

Can you elaborate more specifically?

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

#204

Post by quickthrower2 »

photojosh wrote: post #184
quickthrower2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP said "I restrict screen time" I take this as limit rather than ban. Which I think is a good thing. Screen time is addictive, especially for kids. We all know it. Try and pull your 4 year old away from the TV to get them ready and come back with your results. It is like restricting (but not banning) sugar, and for older kids (depending on your country etc.), caffeine and alcohol.

Get them ready and THEN plonk them in front of the TV and you can get ready in peace. We learned this quickly... ;)

Then you have to prize them away when you want to leave the house.

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

#205

Post by dvdkhlng »

ryanianian wrote: post #71
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…

Most kids don't know how to self-regulate screen time. Saying "no screen time" for an arbitrarily large amount of time seems anathema to growing up today, but saying "no more than N hours a day" (where N depends on age and kid and what the kid does for the time) seems quite reasonable. This isn't just about screen time imho, it's about ensuring balance when kids don't yet know what's best for them. A "healthy relatio…

> Most kids don't know how to self-regulate screen time.

I think that's the center of the problem. In the current times online media and mobile apps are designed to maximize the participant's screen time by being as addictive as possible.

Even grown-ups face problems self-regulating with regards to an "adversary" that invests huge resources in getting our eye-balls (and data and ad views).

Restricting screen-time becomes more and more difficult the more kids grow up, I do not think that this is a very scalable solution.

I think it's more important that kids are made aware and learn how to deal with this "adversary". Make them aware how the TV (or smartphone) "catches" them when they actually had planned to do other things. Make it a game to find out, together with your kid, how a device can have this kind of control over a person. Kids are curious, they will want to know about mechanisms and incentitives of the system and I think this can be explained even with the vocabulary of a 6 year-old.

Humans are very adaptable, maybe kids growing up in our current environment will just acquire skills that the older generation does not have and has difficulties to imagine.

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

#206

Post by toomanybeersies »

ben7799 wrote: post #55
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like more of a factor of where you live and whatnot than anything; I was fortunate enough to grow up in a normal sized town (~6000 inhabitants) and had friends living within walking / cycling distance (not to mention streets you could actually walk on). Not nearly as sprawled out as some cities / suburbs are.

You're an adult... lots of us grew up in towns like that but those same towns/neighborhoods are not like that anymore in the US.

I don't think that things have significantly changed in most towns and neighbourhoods. Things are actually safer now, especially since it's now conveniently cheap for everyone to give their kids a phone, so not only can you child ring you, you can also keep an eye on their location.

For the past 20 years, the media has been pushing this narrative that your children are going to get kidnapped, raped, and/or murdered if you leave them out of your sight. Fear sells newspapers.

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

#207

Post by empath75 »

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…

A healthy relationship with technology is a balanced one, but I don’t know how I’ll enforce it with my kid when I’m on my phone every second of downtime and so is my wife.

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

#208

Post by PeterisP »

guy98238710 wrote: post #195

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 nua…

As the first line says, it's about giving children more sense of control over their lives. Not more control, but more sense of control - it's not about reality but about their perception of it.

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

#209

Post by allcentury »

amerkhalid wrote: post #163
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.

If this is true, next generation will be really interesting. Every parent I have to talked to, says that Youtube and smartphones are the best thing for kids. Whatever we do, their kids are on the phones; restaurants, homes, car rides. And these are really young kids, some as young as 1 year old. If their phone dies or there is network issue, these kids start to cry if it takes too long to fix the issue. I assumed thi…

Research is still really early but signs are showing an impact. Here's a leading early childhood development pediatrician https://youtu.be/BoT7qH_uVNo

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

#210

Post by allcentury »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #135
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just their executive function. It's their sense of time. In much video, a cut[1] happens every three seconds (I don't know if this is true for specifically children's video). This tunes their sense of time - if you don't like what you're looking at, in three seconds it will be completely different. That's not what life was like when I grew up; it's not what life was like for any generation before mine. It se…

Watching older movies and television shows today I'm struck by how much longer shots are and how there are so many fewer cuts. I'm sure that, to some extent, pacing in movies was dictated by the practicality of technology. Modern-day non-linear editing and digital production allows for more frequent cuts at a much lower expense. I wonder, however, to what extent there is a feedback loop occurring between audiences an…

Here's a leading early childhood development pediatrician commenting on this exact point https://youtu.be/BoT7qH_uVNo
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