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Comment by tompagenet2 | Hacker News Reader

8 year old and 5 year old.

Same for both of them. No TV. 25 mins each of video games every other day. We occasionally (maybe once every 6 weeks) watch a film together at the weekend. No tablets. Perhaps once a week they might ask to use the (Windows) laptop to go to a website they use at school, such as Mathletics. We'd normally let them use this. 8 year old has a Kindle (not a Fire but the eReader type) that is used just for reading books from the Kindle Kids subscription that is age limited.

Perhaps once a week we might watch a YouTube video about something vaguely educational, so for example a Tom Scott video.

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Personally I would say this sounds mega-restrictive in a non-constructive way. To each their own with parenting of course, but I hope others don't imitate this person's choices. This sounds limiting to the point that the kids might grow up having limited tech skills and no familiarity with the shows, movies, and games that their peers will be talking about.

I remember growing up watching Discovery channel specials like Steve Irwin, learning a ton of history playing Age of Empires (that led to me having a love of reading historical biographies years later), and just watching movies in general that led to me loving writing stories.

However I have also seen young kids do nothing but waste 7+ hours a day on youtube watching imbeciles splutter about their opinions on tabloid drama or reaction videos.

So my point is that I think it's less about total restriction and more about guiding the content.

That's a valid view point. We don't watch TV (as in me and my wife) so it seems odd for us to encourage our children to do something we don't. I'm sure your experiences were formative (I watched a reasonable amount of kids' TV when I was young), and my 8 year old reads way more books than I did and I assume gets something out of this that encourages her to love stories, history, wildlife etc. My 5 year old is Lego obsessed and loves being read to (and it's getting much better at reading). I don't think TV is the only place to get this enjoyment from.

I think you might also not be appreciating how common computers are in (UK) schools. Both children have lots of computer time in schools (both on iPads and standard computers). I don't think either of them lack familiarity (at least for their age) for how to use them. You might be confusing not having a cheap Android tablet that allows children to play a child-friendly version of Candy Crush with the concept of tech skills; I don't think they're the same.

Fair enough! That's a good point too, they really are everywhere now. I guess I just am someone who really enjoys a good movie and got that appreciation by growing up watching a couple every week, and I would lament missing out on that. I loved legos and books too as a kid, and I do agree tablets/phone with Candy Crush and the like are basically mind-poison for young kids.

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