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Comment by matt3D | Hacker News Reader

My 3 year old doesn't have any screen time, and adults don't use their phones in front of him.

He plays happily by himself, and is always asking questions. People always compliment him on being well behaved, kind and very articulate.

It seems almost taboo to suggest it might be be something to do with the lack of screen time, but I can't help but think it plays a large role. I see how hard I struggle to deal with boredom and refrain from using my phone and I never want to inflict that onto a child.

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Every single child is different, and parents love to extrapolate their own experiences on other children(I'm 100% guilty of this too).

But if we're sharing anecdotes:

- our (almost) 3 year old gets screen time(cartoons in the evening, just so I can cook dinner while my wife works), but speaks two languages fluently at this point, and understands when to switch between them.

- our friends 3 year old has zero screen time, very engaged parents, and knows like 5 words, babbles a lot otherwise. They've been for different consulatations about this and apparently it's completely normal, sometimes kids develop language skills a bit later and that's fine.

What I think is definitely related is parents giving their kids dummies after they turn one - I've seen kids as old as 3-4 years still using them, and I've heard about parents just doing it so "the kids stays quiet". It absolutely breaks my heart.

Yup this is a great point. I've seen plenty of kids (well, former kids) from my peer group who had strict screen time limits and are now the biggest social media users I know. Maybe they could have used a little more exposure earlier? Who knows.

that's exactly what me and my wife did to protect our toddler from drug addiction. We started him on light marihuana since two, only later introducing other drugs like MDMA, amphetamines and very sparingly cocaine. Hope this exposure helps him never to get addicted.

You can't learn to resist hard drugs, and such drugs causes great damage on growing bodies. So no, your example isn't comparable.

Banning candy for your kid is a more apt comparison, and that seems to be very ineffective to me.

I'm not sure if he's joking or serious! In any case sorry this has to be said but no don't give drugs to kids please.

What is "dummies"? Thanks.

Pacifiers.

My 3 year old is also frequently complemented on her language skills. She talks non-stop and is well ahead of other kids we meet in her vocabulary and use of language. She watches TV most days.

I taught myself English at age 5 from watching American television. To this day I sound like I was born in SF despite not spending more than 6 months total there in my life. Television, and internet TV in particular, is the most amazing tool if you start using it properly. I mean ffs, I have access to lectures by world experts in every field one click away. 50 years ago you had to go on a sabbatical for a year to have a chance of doing what I for an hour before falling asleep now.

The internet is a grocery store. If you let a child pick out their own food then some will choose a balanced meal. But many, perhaps most, will choose candy. When you're dealing with populations then you have to think statistically.

If you let children play outside without supervision they will decide to open a cat to see how it works before too long.

You don't need to think statistically, you need to parent.

>open a cat to see how it works before too long

So what? To a literal reading of Tom Sawyer, dead cats are a standard American toy. Might even help cure warts.

>You don't need to think statistically, you need to parent.

Indeed. Parent with the assumption that your child will become a statistic.

>Parent with the assumption that your child will become a statistic.

With a parent like that I'm sure they will.

*parent with the assumption that you child will become a statistic if you don't

Thanks for the judgement though

I think the "Rachel" effect on global toddler vocabulary is deeply underestimated.

I'm guessing, after a bit of searching, that you're referring to

https://www.youtube.com/@msrachel

Should be. Only Rachel YT show I know for kids.

Indeed, my daughter is a big Miss Rachel fan

I think part of it is that the generation who was never allowed to be bored is now raising kids, and so they believe that a perpetual state of being stimulated is the norm. And because kids in general are pretty boring little creatures, it only makes sense to distract them with screens of their own so you can go back to looking at yours.

If my daughter's around me I don't interact with my phone beyond the odd emergency - I'd rather play and talk to her. I'm not particularly anti-screen time (it's impossible to avoid, working in tech) but seeing what a lot of adults consider normal usage is terrifying.

I feel a lot of our generation take the attitude that screen time didn't harm us (hey, we've done ok) which I'm not sold on - I wonder sometimes how I might have turned out if I didn't spend so much time on video games or messing around online as a kid.

Same. Except my 3 year old watches quite a bit of TV and I frequently use my phone in front of him (the latter I am working on, the former I am not too bothered about within reason)

Ditto.

I think screen time is proxy for something else, maybe general parental attention. You can have plenty and watch TV, or have no screen time and no attention either.

A child's day is long and has very few responsibilities, there is plenty of time for attentive, creative playing even around an hour or two of screen time.

Very similar here.

What will you do regarding schools, have you thought about that? Normally I'm not a control freak, but I worry that our hard work protecting him from the negative effects of screen addiction will quickly be destroyed if he's put into an environment where every other kid has a phone and is addicted to it.

Schools in my region are suddenly catching up the the top notch scientific publications warning people to stop parking babies in front of screens.

That’s giving me hope

I think you either home school or you give up and let things fall into place. One thing for sure is that although you don’t allow screen time you can’t expect that your kids aren’t going to be surrounded by kids taking about Mr Beast, Minecraft, etc. They are going to hear about it from friends and feel left out of conversations.

I mean, is that a big deal? When I was a kid, other kids watched shows that I didn't watch and had toys that I didn't have. So what? I think people exaggerate this idea of "being left out". We don't all have to be the same.

social isolation can be a hell of a thing, and in the world we have now where having a phone is the norm, it isnt just about having different toys, its about completely lacking a tool so deeplyintegratedintodaily life that others do have. i don't know what the solution is, but i do think that at least considering it is important

*IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER THAT I AM NOT A PARENT* i cannot judge others for how they raise their children as i do not and will almost certainly never have any of my own, however i can still discuss the topic and raise concerns even with the understanding that i may be missing things and i am willing to accept that may indeed be the case

Why?

It's the phone of other kids, they will not give their phones away

It's not that - but it's being left out.

If all of them will use phones and chat via them, not having one will be social isolation.

We are planning an apple watch at first. Can do both of those.

Seems like fair compromise.

Truth be told I realise that this is a case where whatever you do, there will be consequences. I myself I don't really know how I'd approach that.

I didn't understand your comment. Why what?

How do you do it? It is very, very difficult to not have screen time, in part because there are older kids in my house.

I’m more on the “quality of screen time” and “method of screen time” as my modifiable factors. Zero screen time seems (I cringe saying this) impossible.

I also have a toddler.

Basically you don't use your phone near your child unless it's absolutely critical. That means - don't browse mindlessly, check social media, or news etc. Then all you have left is basically the occasional work related email that is urgent, which can probably be taken care of in mere seconds unless you need to action something.

> That means - don't browse mindlessly, check social media, or news etc.

A good thing to do anyway.

> Then all you have left is basically the occasional work related email that is urgent,

I tell clients I do not check email regularly. If something is urgent they can phone or text message.

I think there are levels of dedication, and parenthood expectations of what having a child is going to be like play a major role.

I'm going to be a father in a couple months and I'm observing most of my friends who did care about avoiding screens for their children give up partially on the idea because they've categorized it borderline impossible. I'm talking about parents who did deeply and seriously care about it prior having the kid.

Meanwhile I have two othwr friends who kinda got away with no screens. But i feel they do put a lot more effort for it.

So my take observing those samples: expectation management and be self-aware of how much sacrifice does it take.

If anyone has more adivice on this I'd appreciate too.

The strategy my SO and I have found works well with our toddler is to find activities to replace the scrolling habit with activities that provide a better model for him (but can still occupy us). We both read paper books around him, under the theory that he can't tell "reading a book on the phone" from "scrolling social media", or do our versions of crafts, or reach out to contact friends and family.

There's a plus side for us as well, since reading, doing hobbies, and being in closer touch with friends is what we would (in our unwarped-by-phone-addiction moments) rather be spending our time doing.

Seems odd to say, but we just don't.

It hasn't really been hard at all. He just gets involved in everything around the house. He helps cook and clean and look after his baby brother.

My 3 year old is holding conversations with adults, building 6+ legos, befriends my friends and has conversations quality conversations with them.

He uses ipad for games/shows at least once every 2-3 days.

There is a clear selection bias especially on HN, where a lot of people are quite intelligent and educated. Our offspring will have the same learning traits.

Not to discount what you're saying because I may be wrong here but could it be that, because your child is well behaved and can play happily by himself, you haven't had a need to give him screen time?

I can see parents giving their child a screen because of the fact they need to distract the child for a few minutes while they do something.

Like, what came first? The screentime or the good behavior?

We did not have a TV, which was definitely a big help. Also a suggestion people do not like.

My kids started with desktops, not phones, and with carefully chosen software - GCompris was the first thing I remember.

Boredom is often a good thing - it motivates you to find things to do.

Our son had no screen time and the odd bit of TV up until 2 years old. On his second birthday my wife thought it would be a nice idea to give him an amazon fire kids (because everyone else had one, though not sure how true that is!). A few things we observed:

1. Whilst there IS good content on there. A lot of it is complete nonsense. cocomelon, paw patrol, baby shark, AI generated rubbish etc. and quite a lot of the games are terrible. Toddlers don't know the difference between what is good and what is bad. You cannot monitor them effectively because amazon provides access to all content by default. He would quite easily get through 20-30 apps/videos in one sitting. That's a lot of different content!

2. Instead of reading, playing with his lego, wooden blocks, trainset or doing puzzles, his goto became the tablet. He wanted it at all meal times, in the car, and before bed. If we didn't give it to him, he had a meltdown. So we ended up giving it to him as we didn't have time to deal with the meltdown. Before the tablet, he didn't really meltdown at all.

3. Whilst he communicates well and talks a lot for a 2 year old. When using the tablet, he would completely zone out... "Would you like to eat supper?" ... tumbleweed. That's not great and aligns with TFA.

4. Not sure if correlated because there are lots of other factors at play but his bedtimes became a nightmare. He wanted the tablet, when before we read books like Mog the Cat or similar. Instead of being content with Daddy singing Jelly on the Plate, he wanted the horrid video on the tablet.

5. We live in a lovely rural area in the UK and he stopped wanting to go outside to instead play with the tablet.

6. Again, not sure if correlated but he became more irritable and restless after using the tablet.

7. He would complain there is nothing to do despite the availabily of toys.

And so... One day we told him the computer was broken. Mummy sent it to the factory to get it repaired. And... It's still being repaired to this day.

The first day was hell but now he's stopped asking for it and he's back to his normal self.

Perhaps we'll introduce it again when he's a bit older.

Heard a similar story from a friend that had to wean their kids off of a tablet.

I don't want to come across as evangelical about it, but it is the best decision I think we've made as parents.

Oh yeah. I get downvoted as hell when I admit that I wish my mom had gently smashed my screens with a hammer instead of hiding my cables, which came to show how powerless she was about the device which was harming my school involvement

Horrifying but honestly seen the exact same thing happen every time.

Honestly don't understand parents who would swap the facade of "it shuts them up" when in reality you have kids who you can take to dinner and they'd happily just sit there with a coloring book vs the drama about how much charge they have left on their tablet and constantly having to tell them to put it down to eat.

Dunno starts to feel like a false economy where you're trading off acknowledging them elsewhere for a moment for every other interaction being amplified into drama mostly centered around the tablet, how much charge is on the tablet, when the tablet must be put down etc.

I give my child zero screen time except on the plane when we are flying across the country to visit family.

Eating out with my son is difficult because he cannot focus on something for more than a few minutes. I’m sure some kids would be content to sit and color for like 30mins but I don’t think it’s the norm at 2.

I know everybody has a suggestion to give and you should listen to nobody, but, if the time comes, give them a nintendo switch with Kirby star allies and yoshi's crafted world (and nothing else). If videogames are something you want to allow, give the hard ones, they either get bored because it's hard or they learn

It’s not the lack of screen time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39601348

This website claims their program has 5th graders succeeding at AP math: https://www.mentava.com/

Kids are capable of more than we give them credit for. Adults are incredibly vain and infantilize their children to preserve their adult egos. Hands on experience and self paced learning across contexts is the key to education success. Not our dilapidated social institutions and reductive philosophy like avoiding screen time. Thats vanity speaking.

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