Comment by stevekemp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stevekemp | Hacker News Reader

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I live in Finland, and have a child who will soon turn seven. Finnish children start school "proper" around this age, and this is the first time they're able to make their own way to/from school.

(Some children walk, some cycle, and others take the regular busses and trams, depending on the distance involved. In our case the child has to walk a few hundred meters, and not cross any roads at all, so it's an easy walk for him.)

Because school finishes around 2pm we've just recently given him a phone so he can say "I'm going to play outside", "I'm coming [to the empty] home", or "I'm going to friend XXX for a couple of hours". It isn't a proper smartphone, but it does allow more than an old-school Nokia.

We've generally allowed 30 minutes of "screen time" a day, sometimes that has been watching selected youtube videos, sometimes playing Super Mario Bros on the nintendo, and sometimes it has been watching TV. I expect the dynamic will change a little more now, but not hugely.

Parental controls will be setup to allow more access between 1pm and 6pm, but I expect that we'll not allow access in the mornings or "late" at night, just to ensure there's not too much obsessive use.

When/If the child can route around the parental controls I think we'll "reward" that creativity with more access. Need to encourage the hacker-mindset :)

What does your child do when he is not on the screen? I'm kind of struggling with this with my child (also Finland) (similar age).

It varies, to be honest.

When he's left to his own devices he reads a lot of Aku Ankka, plays with lego, pokemon cards, and toy cars.

He's quite interested in designing simple board-games, and role-playing character sheets. I think he gets that from his mother, and also from Minecraft. He'll show me a sheet of paper with a bunch of weapons (bows, swords, guns, etc) with "points" associated with them, and then tell me stories.

He goes to play with kids in the garden, the park, or at their houses often, and every weekend I take him swimming, then to sauna. Or sometimes just sauna.

We're doing a bit more "adult" stuff these days, now he's a bit older and has an attention span. For example in the past few months I've taken him to a 90 minute-long circus show, Linanmäki, his first metal gig (hevisaurus), and to the cinema to watch the Mario film. I expect it is only a matter of time until I take him to watch a hockey match, but I don't think he'll be so interested so I've held off for the moment.

I guess other recurring things include going to the allotment (palsta) to weed, harvest berries, and random walks in the forest. He's been really interested in that this year, especially.

I have an 8 year old and this sounds lovely.

Our kids are ages 5-8, and we limit them to 1 hour per day of screen. When not on a screen, our kids play with toys, draw pictures, draw/write stories, read books, make stuff out of garbage (cardboard, cans, bottles, etc), make mud pies in the backyard, and so on.

I never understood restricting screen time, can you explain the reasoning for me?

My parents did this when I was growing up but it only handicapped me because I was interested in coding and didn’t have enough time to learn to go to the competitions I wanted. And I learned that coding was bad because my parents kept a strict time limit on it while other things were encouraged.

Maybe it’s difficult for me to see the benefits of a time limit when I think it has done more harm for me than good. It would make more sense to limit harmful apps and websites but not time from my perspective. But everyone is taking about time-restricting.

Mostly its a matter of making sure he runs around, and doesn't just sit on the floor staring at a screen. I mean sure they go outside for a few hours a day at school, but I expect children to be "active" in whatever way they enjoy.

Later if he has interest I'm sure I could talk to him about coding, but I know he's seen me do enough that he'll not consider it bad..

(It has to be said that a lot of people who talk about bad content are also saying they don't trust that youtube, and apps, will have appropriate content. And a lot of the time kids want to play with phones and the internet they want to do it alone..)

Physical activity and exercise is a good point and I think it's safe to say that exercise is a good, or at worst, a neutral pastime for kids. Probably good, as it would be for adults as well.

What about getting them involved in a physical hobby like a sport, and not restricting screen time? Would that be more beneficial for the kid?

As a dad also in Finland who has a child around the same age... I think I struggle with this wrt my son because I am honestly ambivalent. There is part of me that feels as you do. "Why not? He's active, popular, does sports, spends time with friends, is doing well in school, even has a girlfriend." On the other hand, I know that he would happily give that all up to play Zelda endlessly. When he's not on the screen at home he is restless and bored, which is a conundrum.

I'd say that "screen time" is just a convenient categorization since, for the most part, kids are so drawn to addictive and arguably low-value content that once those things are off, there is no interest in the screen. I've given unlimited time to my kids for more learning-centric stuff, but they hardly use it.

I can tell you if my kids were coding, making music, reading, or otherwise engaged in something more productive with their screens, I'd absolutely whitelist those apps for much more time. But it is, sadly, more YT Kids shit, Roblox nonsense, etc.

> I'd absolutely whitelist those apps for much more time.

I think this is a much better approach than blanket screen time restrictions.

By the way, I got into programming when I was about 10 because an informatics teacher at school showed me how to do it and encouraged her students to compete in school programming competitions. I think it's very difficult for kids to engage with learning-centric stuff on their own, so an incentive (even a very basic one) helps a lot.

What do competitions have to do with learning to code? Also algebra is needed before getting really good at it.

There are very many programming competitions for school students in most countries. Algebra isn't needed much, they are more like LeetCode.

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