My kid's almost three. From day one, we've implemented a zero screen policy. That means no phones, tablets, computers, TV (don't own one), etc.
We've read to her since day one and she loves books now and her spoken/listening language skills are way ahead for her age. Wife speaks to her in her native language so she's growing up bilingual too. Wife takes her to parks, mommy and me classes where they have story time, sing, physical activities, arts and crafts and free play with toys. At home, we expect her to be able entertain herself with toys, books, backyard, etc.
It's not perfect, but at a parenting class, I heard screens described as crack cocaine for kids, so I'm keeping mine away from that shit for as long as I can. She seems to be doing fine without them and though she's curious when she sees one, she doesn't ask/whine for them.[0] I don't even plan to expose educational app games to her. So many other richer ways to learn in 3D space. I highly doubt she'll fall behind for lack of exposure to screens.
[0] The most screen exposure she gets is with others. People these days don't seem to be able to socialize and interact without their phones.
But your child will not be almost three forever. I have one in the same age bracket myself with three older siblings. The little one has practically no interest in screen time anyway, but it's a completely different story with the older ones.
At some point, they will get in touch with media one way or the other. In our case, once they get into school, they'll be using ipads anyway. So, I agree that for very little children, there's is absolutely no need to expose them to any screen time, but at some point as they get older, they will need to learn how to use phones and media.
We're still very restrictive with screen time, though. It's more like a treat that they get to play with a device for 30 minutes (which I, honestly, find already too long, but I'm not a single parent).
Zero to three are critical years for child development. The brain grows to 80% of its adult size by then.
What happens doing those years has outsized effects on the child the rest of their life.
So yes, I won't be able to shield her from screens forever. But I can still do my best to set her up for success and prevent her from being a screen junkie.
You should absolutely continue to protect your kids from screens (and I think some kind of active role is a good thing), but as someone who was raised in a very restrictive household: be careful not too go too far the other way. For example, I was not allowed a mobile phone until I was 16 years old, and this was incredibly socially isolating and made it hard for me to participate in the shared social life of my peer group.
My suggestion would be to listen to your kid when they inevitably ask for access to these things, and while you should acquiesce every request, you shouldn't dismiss them out of hand either, and should take their reasoning into account.
This made me smile. We did this with our elder daughter (now 12). It worked and then the pandemic came where they were given their chromebooks to take home. Luckily only YouTube was allowed. But still it did cause quite a bump in screen usage. Obviously the younger daughter caught on (now 8) and decided hey I can do YouTube as well.
Since last year as things have normalized, we basically restarted a bunch of their sports activities. Both kids had reading requirements from school and both seem to be in a spot where they will read before bed by themselves. The elder one reads quite a bit, probably around 1-1.5 hrs at night. The younger kid about 20-25 mins. They still do about 5-8 hrs of screen time each week. Still too much in my opinion but they also do a lot of stuff not on screen.
I still haven’t given them phones or devices. I myself have an iPhone-6 so not much runs on it either. But as the big kid starts being more independent I think a phone is going to be necessary.
My advice, if any, is keep non screen activities and person to person activity a priority. But keep in mind that her friends may get video games a lot earlier and they do form peers online which translate into peers in person.
I work with someone who went through that. They resent their parents for it.
Wholly and completely resent their parents. Growing up in the later 00s/10s, right as stuff like SMS and especially "social group by text message" came along, it absolutely stunted their ability to make friends.
What it did was disconnect them from their distant peers and meant that making friends outside of their immediate school peers was basically impossible. It also landed them an extremely deep rut of depression, causing them to spend their free time for years sinking into alt-right stuff that actively preys on "people sheltered from social media as kids".
Everything in the under-18 space is organized in real time online behind adults backs. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Kids plot against the adults. The fact of the matter is that social media is the way we engage with so much art, culture, and society that these sorts of schools hurt kids in the long run.
I leave you with the track Turntable Winding Down [0] from the album Public Domain. The intro/outro were stripped when the band re-released the album "legit", but Archive.org has the original because, of course they do.
I know this is not possible or preferable for all, but we plan to homeschool our kids and surround ourselves with other screen-free families. It will be a subculture for sure, but one I prefer over the culture at large. Before mobile phones and texting, kids made friends just fine. I know I did. In fact, compared to todays kids that don't want to leave the house and just be on their technology all day long, I played street sports with the neighborhood kids, went over to each others houses, went on bicycle adventures and yes, we even played video games together (Atari 2600). But even with that we were more communal and real life in that we were doing it together and interacting, laughing, commiserating, celebrating in person. This is the life I want for my kids growing up.
As they grow up, we'll explain why we're doing this. We want them to grow up with the experience that you don't need social media, etc to live a fulfilling life. And we model to them that phones are a very useful communication device and some apps can be very useful like Uber, but it is not to be an entertainment device.
> social media is the way we engage with so much art, culture, and society
I plan to take my kids to museums, plays, concerts etc instead.
My kids are 6, 7 and 9. We've managed to maintain a screen free upbringing for them and they all have other activities they prefer at this stage. Their school however heavily uses screens and we were pretty shocked to find out they are using them (primarily iPads) for a good portion of their day's classes.
I don't find this inspirational compared to another comment "it's better to know about that stuff and how to deal with it than to create a temporary secure enclave at home where it doesn't exist." since the temporary enclave won't be effective
but I am curious if there is inspiration on how you keep your kids entertained at restaurants. So many parents just find an ipad to be a sedative that its basically a baby sitter, they know its bad but are still in need of a quick solution and then 3 years go by before revisiting it and they don't need it any more.
How do you handle that? Bored kid at a restaurant, possibly misbehaving.
So far it's been very effective. My kid has no interest in screens and likes to do real world stuff instead.
I realize I won't be able to shield her from them forever nor would that be a good idea. But these are literally formative years. From age 0 to 3, the human brain grows to 80% of its adult size, 90% by 5. What happens during these years have an outsized impact on their rest of their lives. Let's set them up for success as much as possible. That's why it's been zero screen from day one and as long as possible. When will I introduce screens? Don't know. Will cross that bridge when we get there. Right now, we're doing great with no screens.
> How do you handle that? Bored kid at a restaurant, possibly misbehaving.
> From age 0 to 3, the human brain grows to 80% of its adult size, 90% by 5. What happens during these years have an outsized impact on their rest of their lives.
Do you have a study that affirms these observations are related?
We know that something has an outsized cognitive impact the rest of a person's life at these ages, do you know that brain matter growth size thingy neuron something something is that thing?
I wonder if too much reading is a problem. We end up reading quite a few books throughout the day with our 3yo because they demand it. Offering a screen is only a weak distraction.
Ours asks for a lot of reading time too. I don't consider this a problem and I'd rather have too much than too little. The way I see it, we're cultivating our children to fall in love with books. That will serve them well the rest of their lives.
Also, once they finally learn to read themselves, I predict they will love the independence of being able to pick up their favorite books to read whenever they want. And we'll love that too for multiple reasons. :)
The advantage of books is you don't have an algo recommending you different things on every page. It's not uncommon for me to look up a 5 minute tutorial on YouTube to be stuck there for 1 hour+ due to the recommendations.
If they are saying never pose limits at any age, I vehemently disagree. 0 - 3 are formative years of child development. In that time, the brain grows to 8% of its adult mass and 90% by 5. What happens during this time has outsized effects on a child for the rest of their lives.
By letting a baby/toddler have unrestricted access to screens, you are helping to wire neuronic paths in their brain to need that dopamine hit.
Perhaps there will be a time that I can trust my child to not overdose on screens, but now is definitely not the time.
Zooming out, I think there are fundamental parenting philosophy differences between me and the commenter. I believe the parent should take a very active role in shaping the character and habits of a child. This means restricting things I think are bad for them, discipline when they do wrong and this is the most important, convincing them without a doubt they you love them more than anything in the world. In this way, you give the child a solid core of security and confidence and shape their habits.
To me, the commenter seems to be advocating for letting the child make all the decisions or at least significant ones like screen time. I'm for letting children make increasingly important, age appropriate decisions as they mature and are ready. But when they are under my house, they need to understand two things, that I love them fiercely and I'm their authority figure.
the thing that really kickstarted my passion for it was when i was left some hours alone with a old netbook, 5-6, and it was very slow, but i wanted to to something cool with it, and I followed some tutorials on YouTube to make small programs in visual basic
Believe or not, especially if we order something she really likes, she'll sit there eating her food and talk to us, making comments about things she notices in her environment. Before the food comes, she'll just look around and make conversation about what she sees.
Could this be just her personality and we got lucky? Possibly. But I'm willing to bet it also has to do with her not being used to screens and instead being used to focusing on the environment in front of and around her. There are studies about the association between screen time and ADHD symptoms.
I think the symptoms/behavior comes first, and the screens come after. My son cannot sit still. He’ll wiggle, jump, run and try to touch/lick everything in existence if he’s not entertained, and what he finds entertaining is exactly the things I mentioned before.
And youtube.
It’s literally the only way to get him to sit still for any amount of time (that I’ve found anyway), so that’s what restaurant time has become.
Doesn’t mean he always wants to or gets to watch a video, especially if he can run about outside instead, but if we’re eating in a restaurant that’s otherwise dreadfully boring to him, yeah.
I have nothing negative to say about your comment. The reality is your son cannot sit still at a restaurant and youtube works to have a decent dining experience.
Now if outside the restaurant context, you were constantly giving him Youtube time in lieu of real world activity, I would encourage different behavior.
Occasionally see people with children who cannot eat a meal without a tablet or phone running beside them. Before or after food at a restaurant if it's the only way you can enjoy your own meal is one thing, but as a behavioural crutch otherwise is asking for trouble.
Like you, I try to foster in my kids an interest in everything around them. Absolutely everything is an interesting topic of discussion. Or a way to build an observational challenge - can you point to something purple? Or triangle-shaped? What instruments can you hear in this music?
One of the nice things about going to southern Europe (Greece, Spain, Italy, etc.), is the lack of expectations of kids to sit quietly at all. From my experience over the last few years, you go to a restaurant at 10pm and everyone's kids are running around, playing together with strangers, or asleep on their parents.
As a parent of a 3 year old in the UK, with friends and restaurants we'd just talk to them or they'd colour, read, etc. Maybe cultural, but it would be seen it as pretty unusual/rude to have a kid with an iPad at a table in a restaurant; although I agree it's a lot to ask of 3 year old to sit there for hours.
I have a 6 and 4 yr old. We've had a strict no screen during the school week rule. They can watch on weekends, holidays, and sick days. There's a zero screen policy in public, with the exception of airplanes and long road trips.
My kids are really well behave in restaurant and never ask for screens (I'm not even totally sure they would think of it). The trick for us is regularly flowing food, allowing them to bring bring a small toy, coloring utensils, and honestly just engage with them. That could be through visual and word games or just talking to them and asking the right questions. It's hard work, not every meal out is perfect, and sometimes it feel like it would just be easier to give them the phone. But I'm happy that we've taken this stance. I can't tell you how many times a restaurant owner or a nearby table has said how well behaved our kids are.
This question kind of shocks me. We do allow, very limited, screen-time but the concept of having no idea what to do with the kids without a screen is jarring to say the least.
Haha. You're easily shocked. I was replying to an interesting comment talking about how they interact with their child. And I was curious about what they do in a situation that they hadn't included in their comment.
There are a lot of great replies to my question. I'm happy I asked it.
A 2-3 year old sitting there quietly talking, coloring or reading? Yeah it's very very very hard to believe. Even if the child is an absolute saint there's such things as sensory overload.
Are you guys being serious? It would be a cold day in hell before my children sat at a dinner table with an ipad for entertainment! A 3 year old talking, colouring, playing games etc before food arrives is absolutely normal and acheivable!
Right on. I’m always amazed when we go to a restaurant and there are kids on iPads while eating.
There is no question that iPads are the easiest solution, but it’s rarely the best solution, and it’s certainly not necessary. Humanity survived for thousands of years without having iPads for kiddos at restaurants.
I do agree that different kids are different. Ours were often good. However I absolutely did not tolerate poor behavior either. If things got dicey (rarely) I escorted one outside until the storm passed. Never took longer than five minutes. Turning them into zombies instead never occurred to me.
This is such an important note. Of course kids get overwhelmed. Adults get overwhelmed. One of the main reasons kids melt down over it is because they're not just overwhelmed, but trapped.
An adult can excuse themselves, step out for some fresh air, go to the bathroom, or even go home. Knowing how and when to do that is an important skill.
Kids need that outlet too, and they need their parents to be attuned to their needs and help them manage.
If a kid is melting down at a restaurant, they need help from an adult who ought to have some idea what the child needs and how to provide it.
Too many parents seem to think their own desire for an uninterrupted meal is more important than their child's basic biological need to be able to get out of an overwhelming situation. It's not fair to trap someone somewhere they don't want to be and then blame them for becoming upset.
Seeing as parents were able to bring kids with them to places long before screens even existed, it's definitely not just a matter of what does or doesn't work. Kids can be taught to be well-behaved without screens, and if you're unable to do that for your kids then that's on you. And I'll judge you as much as I like.
If you bring kids to restaurants early, they get used to the rules quite quickly. If they can figure out a touchscreen, they can figure out how to sit politely at the table.
Mine were very happy to draw, read picture books, etc. at that age.
My daughter is verifiably not a saint, and she sits and eats dinner and chats with adults. This should be the base expectation of any child, within reason. Yes, she can color; yes, sometimes the adults have to entertain children's stories; yes, we pay attention to her. But otherwise, she's incredibly enjoyable to bring out to restaurants and such with the right environment.
Reminds me once when we sat down next to a fancy older woman on a flight with our toddler. Could see the lady visibly tense up when she saw us—expecting a screaming monster. Didn't happen. Kid sat in my lap and had charmed the socks off the lady within the first hour and we had a nice chat with her after she warmed up.
I think it's quite brash to say that it's "privileged" to raise children with no screens. Would you like to elaborate? People certainly existed without them.
We’re 1.5 (I’m the .5) with school-day daycare (absolutely no screens there).
I will cop to allowing him to watch a playlist of nature videos I’ve downloaded and watched through beforehand, on an old laptop, at times when I need to do something urgently without toddler assistance.
Otherwise, he can spend a good hour at the sink “washing” dishes with a trickle of water or attempting to sweep (ignoring his actual toys entirely!)
My husband grew up without a TV in the house in 70s-80s West Germany. His parents eventually got one, but it sits in a side room and is usually just turned on for the 8 o’clock news.
I asked my mother-in-law about this sacrifice on her part. Her answer? She didn’t think she’d have time to watch everything her kids were watching to make sure it was appropriate, so she took Alexander’s solution to that Gordian Knot - they simply sold their TV once their first child was a few months old.
My in-laws’ generation was glad to get enough to eat as children in postwar Germany; a TV was an unimaginable luxury until they were in their teens. She didn't feel like she was depriving her children of anything important.
My husband and his sister weren’t forbidden to watch TV at others’ houses, or to go to the movies. Neither of them ever wanted to buy one for themselves as teenagers or university students, and today, they both keep very quiet houses.
Result? They talk a lot when not sitting around reading. Guests at my in-laws are offered the contents of the decently-stocked magazine stand, a rotation of coffee table books, or if they’d like something from the bookshelves.
I grew up in a stereotypical American house with the TV on all the time, but started escaping it early to hole up in my room with a computer long before most people had internet access at home.
In some ways, I feel more at ease visiting my husband’s family than my own, despite a bit of a language barrier.
One might say there’s less of a lifestyle barrier.
My husband's family has much less money than my American relatives, so privilege has nothing to do with the fact that my German niece got her first dumbphone at 11, puts her school laptop away when her homework is finished and picks up one of her craft projects, and my American nephew has had his own iPad since he was 3, his own TV and AppleTV since he was about 6, and now a Roblox addiction.
Around the world it's quite common to have an extended family serve as a support network, especially around childcare. You're right though that maintaining no-screen when your child is with others is harder though, and finding how people deal with that was my main motivation for making this thread.
Single income one with wife as SAHM. We live on one software engineer's salary (not FAANG). We make sacrifices with things like size of our house, etc and feel it's worth it to invest that opportunity cost into our children.
I understand that not everyone can live on one income. But more often I see in my circles people that can make it work, but choose not too because they don't want to make that career/financial sacrifice. Instead both parents work and send their kids to daycare. Of course that's totally their choice. I've made a different choice and perhaps this is an unpopular opinion this day and age, but I think it's the best choice if you can make it work financially and are willing to put in the effort that it entails.
We've read to her since day one and she loves books now and her spoken/listening language skills are way ahead for her age. Wife speaks to her in her native language so she's growing up bilingual too. Wife takes her to parks, mommy and me classes where they have story time, sing, physical activities, arts and crafts and free play with toys. At home, we expect her to be able entertain herself with toys, books, backyard, etc.
It's not perfect, but at a parenting class, I heard screens described as crack cocaine for kids, so I'm keeping mine away from that shit for as long as I can. She seems to be doing fine without them and though she's curious when she sees one, she doesn't ask/whine for them.[0] I don't even plan to expose educational app games to her. So many other richer ways to learn in 3D space. I highly doubt she'll fall behind for lack of exposure to screens.
[0] The most screen exposure she gets is with others. People these days don't seem to be able to socialize and interact without their phones.