Can we talk about the original tweet some? How DO we let kids be kids in this age where all the other kids wanna do is be on YouTube and TikTok?
If that's what all the kids are doing then it seems that's what a kids activity has become.
I used to play with neighborhood kids quite a bit when I was younger. Now my nephew plays Fortnite almost every day with 5ish different friends. He gets way more experience socializing than I ever did.
Ultimately (I think) kids need to learn to socialize with their peers. That means they need to participate with their peers doing what their peers are doing.
Ubiquitous socialising can be good but it cuts both ways, especially in an environment where you have no plausible deniability. In my opinion, people should be free to have their own thoughts, potentially get blasted for them, and move on with their lives the next day with minimal consequences. Certainly there should be no consequences coming from people that were not actually there, but just heard about it from some social media platform.
Granted if a kid were to just upload fun videos... have comments off ... not interact with the community, then maybe they'd be ok? But I think all of that is not super likely as my son's friends want to be youtube stars.
When I was 10 or so, I uploaded some dumb little skits with my friends to YouTube. The videos accumulated about 2k views total, and are all gone now, and no one will ever recognize me from them.
Poeple in general are extremely bad at generalizing situations to match their own experiences. People get old, see younger people playing differently (new toy, new technology, new societal framework), and fail to notice that the new kind of play is still mostly the same module/class of play they had, just with a different coat of paint.
E.G. In the 80s' we used to play with k7 recorders, recording singing, pretend news casts and comedy shows. Now kids are doing youtube and tiktok, and that is exactly the same module of play, it is not some brand new thing.
Having said that, I'd like to point out that, although for the kid it is basically the same kind of play, the fact that is more public (k7 had a limited reach, just neighborhood friends, but the internet has unlimited reach) means bigger stakes, so parents should be more vigilant, it is even more crucial now that parents get involved in the kids activities to keep an eye out.
I think the problem is that the original tweet seems to think that "coding" is only a vocational skill, and it's definitely not. When you're that age, coding is just another form of expression and exploration. It can make something useful, but it's just puzzles and fingerpaint.
Anyways, I agree. It's another form of expression. Just like Math or Music.
But I do also agree, in part with her point, that kids should explore possibilities and be kids instead of having to worry about their vocation so young and being put on a track to become something.
Yeah that's a really tough line to track. At some point they're going to develop a sense of purpose and I have no idea when or where or what or how I can nurture it.
ANXIETY
"That lady" is Adrienne Porter Felt, who started as an engineer working on Google Chrome security a decade or so ago, and is now a Director of Engineering who manages a sizable chunk of the Chrome team.
I never worked with her directly, but she has a reputation as a good manager and I'm pretty sure she knows how programmers work.
Programming is great for self expression, exploring new ideas, amusing people. These are great goals for kids.
If you teach a kid to program, probably they're gonna put it to use in Minecraft or Roblox, not by writing accounting software. That's good! That's no more professional software development than kids building with Legos are doing engineering.
For us, it started at me - I had to make some big changes. When she was very little, I caught myself pushing her on a swing with my nose in my phone. Once I caught myself doing that, I broke the habit - now when we’re spending quality time together, my phone doesn’t exist.
This gives us space to do things outside, go on adventures and use our imaginations.
Devices are a huge part of her world so at other times, we either share one device and I let her quarterback or we spend an hour in bed on our own devices. I’m open about what I do on my device and she’s open about what she does on hers. In some cases, this creates an opportunity for me to teach and model. In other cases, it gives her an opportunity to teach me.
The last part has been especially important. As my girl has taught me things about her world, I’ve learned that some of my ideas about kids being kids are based on my own prejudice. I’ve caught myself expressing an overly rosy view of ‘when I was a kid’ and have tried to project that world upon her. Thankfully, my kid and I have the kind of relationship where she’s more than comfortable to tell me that I’m wrong.
I saw someone mention summer camp, some kind of structured mechanism to do it would help a lot i think.
Oldest one is 6 now, so not sure what that will be like going into their teen years. I feel like that's when it will be harder to get them offline but we will see