Devices

[PrincessFiona]

Do any of you struggle to parent without devices? This is a struggle in our house because we are all addicted. When the big ones were little, we had no iPads or phones. My 13 year old constantly has a device I’d like to limit it more, but don’t know what to replace it with. I’ve truly fallen into the trap of struggling to parent without a device.

Kris


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[alotofyarn]

Yes. Although I more struggle with J giving the kids their iPad or his phone than anything else. He never wants to say no, and my kids, especially C, can be persistent. I try to limit it to weekend mornings and special occasions, and even then I'm really trying to limit because I think it's keeping C from sleeping well. But I need J to be more on board. It's certainly easier to plug them in and let them watch something while we get stuff done, but I think it's more important that we engage with them.

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[scarlett09]

Struggling with the amount of TV that E is currently watching. I know it will get better as G gets older, and that it is part of the transition to another kid. But I still feel bad we aren’t spending as much time outside or doing crafts or other things.

We only do the iPad on weekends and it’s mostly one educational game. I’ve weaned her off of videos, at least. I was getting worried about what ads she was seeing when we weren’t watching with her.


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[MrsK]

Apparently, my boys are the only ones in their grade without some sort of gaming system. They are starting to complain that they don’t get to watch the same TV shows as their friends either. K2 says that he’s missing out on valuable cultural references (his words). It can’t be harming him too much because he’s still class president. Also, my kids have read a lot more literature and they know a lot more science and civics than their friends do. Even with that, I catch them steeling our laptop to play coolmathgames.com after bed time. I pretty much have everything on lock down for now but I know it’s going to get hard soon. My problem is that DrK and I are not early adopters of technology; we go decades without buying televisions and we are way behind in our cel phone technology. That has created a bit of a phobia because we are ignorant of the problems they can encounter on-line, how to educate them about being safe, and how to use parental monitoring systems. We need to get up to speed quickly.


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[PrincessFiona]

It’s such a tough call. We don’t have television and our kids missed all the references etc. the older kids still complain sometimes that they missed out on parts of their childhoods. I didn’t buy designer clothes until it became a problem. The older kids had no cell phones for awhile. Big mistake. Now we’re all in with technology and I plan to break the addiction starting with myself.


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[spotty_dog]

This afternoon when I read this, I was sitting here on my laptop while my son played Minecraft and live-chatted with a friend, and my daughter watched Youtube on her tablet.

I feel pretty okay about our use of this stuff. We have had a LOT of talks with the kids about media consumption. We talk about who produces the content and why. We talk about how it makes us feel and how it affects our brains. DD is limited to Youtube channels that are engaging. Vids about gaming strategies, science videos, cooking videos, math videos are fair game. Five minute crafts and funny animations are not. DS also limits himself similarly for Youtube, and cuts himself off when he finds that he's browsing aimlessly and growing mindless about it. Interactive stuff like building redstone contraptions with or without friends, or even solving puzzles in Zelda, is limited a bit less than something like Geometry Dash.

Neither has or really wants a phone (10 and almost 13) or social media. Both would rather have me help them google popular culture references than have to spend the time keeping up with whatever Netflix or cable show is the trend du jour, and they definitely don't feel compelled to keep up with enough references to understand the immense breadth of memes.

DS turns 13 this month and although that's a milestone in some families, I don't think we'll be getting him a phone any time soon. DH is adamant that kids don't need them until high school if at all (because he didn't need it). I'm more just prone to wait and see what arises socially and logistically, eg. if he needs to call us for rides a lot AND he is feeling left out of Instagram, THEN we will start that discussion. But not before.

[OrionGrad]

Devices

We could probably be better about limiting screen time, but like [MENTION=985]spotty_dog[/MENTION] said, I’m pretty comfortable with what my kids are doing online. DS1 uses my old laptop to play critical thinking games through his own school’s website. My younger kids watch the PBS Kids app from time to time, but they’re both more into drawing than watching shows. We use our tablets the most when we’re traveling, and tv shows sometimes when I need some quiet in the house.


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[Ethan1989]

You could use some other method to limit the screen time like books are very good method and taking them to walk or outside may be help you or take them to the any football or cricket club or swimming club?