Hacker News Reader

Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

You're reading too much into it. Kids have full blown meltdowns over nothing all the time.

Your story might just as well have been about candy.

I left context out for the sake of brevity, but since you are addressing its absence:

The entire time I was there (and remember, this is the DMV, so it was a while) the kid was glued to the phone. There is a difference between engaging with a smartphone and being engrossed by one. This case was certainly the latter. Yes, again, toddler worldviews have limited scope and the thing in front of them is usually the most important thing ever, but even so this child was clearly addicted.

No you're still misreading that - because you could be talking about my nephew holding a torch or a toy truck.

You go from "kid throws tantrum" to "kid was clearly addicted". That's simply plain nonsense and all it shows is that you're not around toddlers much.

This.

We let our kids watch our phones sometimes in public, and when we take them away they get sometimes get grumpy. But that’s nothing compared to how my kid lost his sh1t tonight when I told him I wouldn’t sing him jingle bells because it was past his bed time. You would have thought I put all his toys in a fire.

This really just reminds me of how people only notice when kids go off the hook and don’t notice when they behave. My (maybe incorrect) guess is the person at the DMV doesn’t have kids.

The point is that using a device in this way guarantees a meltdown everytime it has to be taken away. And at the age where they can actually start managing their emotions and reactions, this approach remains a handicap for these poor kids.

That's not true, my wife and I have been very liberal in our approach to electronics with our kids and none of them has a meltdown when we take their devices away. Like everything else with parenting, it's all a giant gray area and it's mostly important to set expectations.

The particular reaction from parent taking away the devise may be more important cause here. I've seen this play out: some mom making repeated attempts to take away the ipad with the sad face looking like she was strangling the poor kid. No confidence, no desire to engage with the toddler, make eye contact. It's sad really, the parent behaving like this can't be giving much thought to parenting anyway and such meltdown is much more a cry for attention.

Yup. I sometimes let my 2 year old watch videos on YouTube. I tell her “we’re going to watch one more”, and she accepts that without so much as a whimper.

I think some of it also has to do with the kids personality. If it was a battle getting it away from her, I’d probably avoid giving it to her altogether.

So much so it's a "Reason my child is crying" meme.

and it's hilarious:

https://www.mommyshorts.com/2014/04/more-reasons-your-kids-a...

An interesting test of addiction would be whether the bad behavior stops the instant they are re-introduced to the object.

Seems like it was about candy

Reply on news.ycombinator.com