Is advice: pick your battles. If you run yourself ragged trying to “do everything right” as a parent, and you’re underslept and cranky and falling short in engagement and behaviour, that’s what will affect them the most. Plus, parenting is more fun when you relax a little and ignore a good chunk of the anxiety being promoted by/for today’s parenting culture. I feel that most modern parenting advice is overzealous and far into the land of diminishing returns.
We have tried to intervene, especially after he snuck an iPhone to his room and watched 22 hours of videos over the course of a week (while he was in bed) before we caught on. Nothing other than extreme measures of locking away devices keeps him from frittering away every waking hour on screens.
The other two kids don’t have similar issues.
Was I a book addict? Are there 12 step programs for that?
I don't recall similar concerns, but parenting back then was a lot less hands-on.
We've decided to give them (3, 5, 7) basically no screens except for occasional television. But I'm wondering whether it would be better to give them something creative that they could learn from instead of television. The middle one likes building (with Duplo) a lot [1].
When it comes to screens, have you tried anything apart from Minecraft and Mario Maker? What have they played Minecraft on? Did they start with those games and at what ages if I may ask? Looking at the "what's it" of Mario Maker my first thought was that it would be too complicated for them (starting out with screens), but I'm likely just underestimating them.
[1]: I was wondering about switching to Lego but I don't think these modern pre-made sets are all that good, in comparison to just regular building blocks.
- PS4 (then 5) for Minecraft (but also iPad). 3DS for Mario Maker 1. Wii and Switch for other Mario games.
- I was shocked that my 6yo, LOVES the NES and SNES Mario games. He loves the challenge and doesn't seem to get discouraged, he just decides its time to stop for a while. The hand-eye coordination is ridiculously impressive.
- Both started around 3-4. Minecraft was the best because by its own nature, they only get exposed to what they can do, but the next tier of challenge is always immediately available. So this lets them grow at their pace. He started learning just how to move around and make a dirt house. These days he's making Redstone machines. I cannot sing Minecraft's praises enough.
- There's something magical about giving a 3 year old a Wii controller with New Super Mario Bros Wii playing, to watch him die about 80 times on the first level, belly laughing every time, then to watch a video from a year later where he just flies through the level. Then to watch him last week getting to 2-2 all on his own in Super Mario Bros. (1989). This is completely beyond anything I was capable of at 6.
- We have a ton of Duplo (and now Lego) and I find that one of the best things is when they begin to mix things together: they'll make Minecraft homes and play scenarios out of Duplo (now Lego). 6yo has a set of Lego in his room and I wake up 2 or 3 times a week to him making some Minecraft thing. "Here's a lever!" "Here's a pressure plate that controls a trap door!" None of it works (yet) but it's his imagination that's growing so well.
- We let them have YouTube Kids. We have to moderate it on occasion, but it's generally good. I love this part because they take a ton of stuff they see others doing and they repeat it. He will show me Mario Maker tricks, or recreate some Lego build (to a 6yo's fidelity).
- We constantly underestimate them. It's why we strive to always have stuff available that's too old for them. Their curiosity will tell all of us when it's the right time for a toy. (My dad busted out a 1960s Meccano set when oldest was 5 and we thought... no way... but he sat methodically for an hour and worked out the tiny nuts and bolts into a car with actual Ackermann steering.
- We also let them have access to a desktop computer with a keyboard and mouse. Watching a 4 year old turn on a PC, log in, open Chrome, get to PBS Kids, and play a game, is a very good way to remember that we constantly underestimate kids.
- Oh and on Mario Maker complexity: I finally understand why Nintendo locks all the features behind "complete these levels to unlock them": It keeps the system super simple... he had so few parts it wasn't hard for him to master them. Then he plays levels, sees new mechanics/parts in action, then gets them. He proudly shows me a new thing he unlocked, then makes a level with it. This is absolutely brilliant self-guided learning. Holy crap, Nintendo. I get you so much better now.
I hope I didn't miss anything. I'm happy to talk lots about this if anyone finds value in it.
I let my 4 year old play a competitive FPS that I also play, and that is mostly played by adults. He loves it. The game sometimes has in-game 1v1 events, and I cannot describe how proud I am when he wins 1v1s vs. adults. He can't even read yet.
Nothing is better than these "my kids are superior to yours" style posts, disguised as parenting advice.
While we're giving anecdata, my kids are precisely the opposite. They have ready access to a pool and an enormous box of legos as well, but if given unlimited access to screens, they absolutely WILL spend all waking hours staring at them.
Learn to use parental controls. My 6 year old has a YouTube Kids account, which is by nature limited to “kid friendly” content. But you can take it a step further, and limit their account to a whitelist of videos/playlists/channels you approve of. He’s only got access to a dozen or two videos and so he doesn’t get sucked into an endless stream of questionable content.
By preventing unlimited access, they often go seek other things/activities. They’ve stopped asking to watch shows and just go outside to play hockey or baseball, grab their markers to do some drawing/colouring, etc.. make it easy for them to drop into these alternate activities and the screens become less of a draw.
This all works for now, but I do fear as they get older and want to interact with friends online and whatnot. I’ve already seen some of their cousins who have more access show them stuff which they of course want to try. Not sure how long we can hold out before they realize that their iPad can do that too.
Avoid anything with dynamic ads. Apple Arcade is great for kids. PBS video is great. YouTube Premium if you want Ms. Rachel etc. we’ve had no issues with YouTube recommending garbage… it mostly “gets” that kids are watching now.
Make your own rules and stick with them. No iPad after 5pm or whatever.
Use your head and your heart. Undesirable behavior is undesirable behavior, regardless of whether a device is involved.
The product being sold to parents is fear. And boy, oh boy do they have the antidote to sell you!
Having raised 3 kids it's mostly pretty easy:
- Make sure they're eating real food. They can have some junk food so long as they're actually filling up on real food.
- Ditto with water. Make sure they're drinking water. Limit (but don't eliminate) access to soda and apple juice.
- Make sure they're moving around and playing, preferably outdoors as much as possible.
- Make sure they're playing with other kids.
- Don't hover while your kids are playing. (Actually, try not to be a helicopter parent.)
- Let your kids handle their own disagreements.
- Teach your kids not to tattle. In our house it was the one tattling who got in trouble. Of course there are exceptions: blood, fire, property damage.
Everything else will largely work itself out. Just remember, your kids will mimic you - they will do what you do, not what you say. If you think they're consuming too much screen time, then take a look at your screen time. You want them to read more? Well, how much do you read? They're watching way more than they're listening and they have a keen sense for hipocracy.
So, congratulations and good luck!
When they're younger it's not so bad. You can simply say "only 1 hour of screen time a day" and the kids don't put up a fuss. I even went a year without a TV and they just think this is normal because they don't have any other experience to compare it too.
At the Jr. High / High School level though it became difficult. Even when my son wanted to meet up with his friends in person and suggested things like going to the city park / mall his friends would decline and say "Why? Let's just hang out on Xbox." It wasn't even about playing Xbox, that's just where they hang out now. We even went so far as to build a game room and outfit it with multiple Xboxen, network switches, large TVs, etc. The kids still just preferred hanging out at their own homes and talking over headsets.
The only thing that ended up helping was we set a rule that he had to join two clubs at school. He tried a few different clubs and found two he liked. At one of the clubs they just happened to have a tradition of going and getting Boba afterwards and hanging out. He now has a decent group of friends that hangs out, in person, just talking.
Weekends dad(me) and son will play upto 1 hour of his non-interactive game during not good outside hours(raid/dark).
Some times we will whip up a SNES emulator and play some DK or similar(taking turns mum, dad, son) until the preset lives are out.
We mix this with lots of outside play(at least an hour a day), where he and I play with balls, throwing toys, climbing equip etc.
This is at 5. At 4 we had a NES emulator and Super Mario, half time and half tv time.
When the weather is good we go swimming in the ocean, or some other outdoor activity.
He had a smartphone(offline) for controlling the Chromecast but after seeing him passively swipe while watching tv made me remove that.
I plan to move him through consoles as I did, at an accelerated pace, and his first PC will have many sub optimal parts which he can work off to 'earn' upgrades. If he can figure out how to install them.
At the same time, I will be teaching him to hike, surf, fish and whatever else he likes.
Is this hard? Hell yeah, I'm freaking exhausted XD
The most important thing is who you surround your child with, if all their friends spend their day on their phones, your son will probably try to do the same thing, however, as my friends used to spend time playing outside, I did the same. So not only your rules that matter, but also the environment.
Another thing to be aware of is that the internet changed, I grew up with flash games, a fun little way to kill time when you're bored, nowadays short-form video content is taking over, ads are everywhere and political ideologies are injected into everything, so one should be more careful of what kids are watching.
I tried Youtube Kids because I wanted the content to be pre-approve only, I liked the toddler friendly controls, and the app can go in single app mode on the iPad. It's subscription, which is fine, but the main problem is they won't let me approve the content I want. I can see some great kids stories and learning videos in our language on regular Youtube, but can't seem to find a way to get them into the Youtube kids app. (And I certainly am not going to turn her loose on regular Youtube.)
There don't seem to be any other apps that do what I want so I ended up setting up a Plex media server and use yt-dlp to download the videos for her. This works pretty well, but is a lot more work. And the app is not great.
Overall, it seems to be working really well. She’s super curious, and she loves to read and go outside. There are some downsides for you, as the parent, however. You can only watch TV after the kid goes to sleep, so no more watching live TV. You also have to be engaged with your child most of the time. Sometimes, it would be so nice just to sit her down for 30 minutes and go relax, but you have fewer options to do that without TV. She is actually pretty good at entertaining herself, but those stretches of self play aren’t predictable or controllable like putting a TV show on is.
- Clean up their messes or their rooms
- General housekeeping/chores
- Worksheets from their workbooks (they all have workbooks from the next grade up)
- Reading a chapter or so in a "chapter book"
- A couple of other learning/development activities (Soduku, puzzles, etc.)
If they do one of those things on their own, they get electronics for a bit, or some other treat (candy, etc).
So far it is working well, especially the worksheets. The first two kids are in grade school, and teachers are consistently impressed with them.
If you severely restrict them then they will rebel, if you let them on all the time they will be sucked in.
Keep them well away from social media as much as you can.
Teach them they can brush their teeth or go to the toilet without their phones (you need to live this too and be a good role model)
Devices and eating don’t mix when it is communal, end of.
Guess we somehow need to change this when son grows up. Now he is only 2.
At a minimum make the time at weekends, it is just a small thing that makes such a massive difference. Could well be a relationship maker or breaker in my experience.
Had a bad effect - became very demanding around it, tantruming for it (which we hadn't seen before). (very nearly) Cold turkey again on the tablet now!
Make it as boring as possible.
if you give a kid a screen with creative stuff / Mario Maker installed, that's what they'll play
if you give them a screen with Youtube installed, that's what they'll watch
i think the goal should be to curate their experiences, as zealously as a museum curator manages their exhibitions