My kids are 7 and 9. We do unlimited screen time. There is some reasoning behind it: (1) they are both autistic and it helps them form language and some limited reading; (2) we need parenting breaks; (3) video games help with fine motor (an issue with one of the kids); and (4) we keep them focused on educational content. Probably not the best parenting out there but we are just trying to survive. 🙂
I’ve always been pretty liberal about video time. We get out and we do stuff, but when at home, they can be on videos and there’s governance but it’s limited.
Here are some rules that were put in place at the start of it:
] I can see what they’re doing at any time
] they come to me for bad content and swearing
] we discuss swearing and bad content. the conversations drag on if it appears concealed
That’s it. Go have fun. I check in from time to time. Son and daughter. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Cursing will work it’s way into their stream. We talk about how cursing isn’t mature and these people use it to try to seem cool. We talk about why they want to seem cool. We talk about monetization and views and clicks. We talk about “the viewer as a product.”
Mature topics come up. Discussed intelligently and why they’re inappropriate. Who you can talk about these things with and who will be offended/embarrassed. Why it’s not generally brought up.
They now have their own niches of interest and share them freely with me. I am learning more history and odd facts than I expected. After the novelty of watching the repetitive content wears off, the education content that interests them begins to dominate their streams. Reptile hatching. Presidential history and wars. Art and music. I got asked what cum is. Better to get a real answer from a parent then schoolyard gossip. Issue covered, here’s why it’s not discussed, now go have fun.
I feel it’s been a good experiment. When I was younger, the fight was over what books I should read. What music I could hear. Now it’s about what content kids should see. I see it as an argument about whether you should parent now, or let them just discover it all when they’re out of the house. I felt it was better to cover it while they can get my perspective, and it seems to be working. caveat emptor.
1 hour each of TV time and game time, per day, 3 hours on non-school days.
TV consists of YouTube Kids, Disney Kids, Hulu Kids, or our own Plex library.
Game time consists of pretty much just the Nintendo Switch. Occasionally, he’ll play Steam games, but together with me or my wife.
He gets unlimited time with his Kindle.
Really tough question since it’s been a while and I don’t have kids today (man that would suck in the age of TikTok and handing the kid an iPad for a reprieve) but what my parents did was limit computer time to 1 hour in a day until middle school ish so I had to make decisions.
Handhelds had to be downstairs and off at night, and (ideally) one hour before bedtime so no late night shenanigans.
I guess there’s also starting lower tech like flip phones, PDA’s but that’s because I’m more of a nerd and it’ll be my “uphill both ways” equivalent esp. since i’m not ready for unlimited web access and all that entails
No YouTube except for how-to videos. They’ve never had it so it’s not an issue.
90 minutes of screen time they can otherwise use how they wish. They have to get their jobs done first (chores, piano practice, school stuff) and spend at least 20 minutes outside before they can get screen time.
They typically choose to watch shows or movies on Disney+, watch The Simpsons, or play video games together.
Edit: they don’t have any social media (FB, x, tiktok) except messenger kids.
My oldest is 12 and is very anti social media. I assume we will have to deal with it eventually.
When my kids were younger I monitored their usage and restricted their access. As they earned trust this eased up. Now that they are teens they are mostly free to do what they want. I will still ask what they use their phones for and we have frank conversations about it, but I will not invade their privacy unless there is a good reason.
I have 3 step children (I am step dad) they were 13, 10 and 8 when I met them, currently 18, 15 and 12 (birthday soon). When I met them, the primary family activity they did with their bio dad was watching movies and playing video games. They also all slept with a TV on in their room. My girlfriend at the time, now wife, had nothing but an old xbox 360 for video games and they had an old CRT box TV in the bedroom the 3 kids shared. As a result, they did not watch a lot of TV at her house or play a lot of games.
Currently, we do not limit the screens of the 18 year old at all. He has a job and is moving out in <2 months, he can do what he wants with his free time as long as it is not disruptive to anybody else.
Our youngest REALLY likes video games. As a result, we let him play pretty much as much as he wants if he is not at school. That said, he is on 2 soccer teams (middle school and travel) and he works out extra at home. As a result, he usually has about 30 minutes of screen time a day during the school week. Plus he has his phone to play games on the school bus. He does not have Youtube or any streaming apps on his phone though. He is allowed to sleep with the TV on Friday nights only, to celebrate the school week being over. Weekends are screen heavy as well, except for tournament weekends or regular game days. Honestly he is a good and active child so we let him use more screens than would maybe be healthy. Summer is a bit different t, where we force him to go outside and play at least a few hours a day, but otherwise let him do what he wants, so lots of screens there.
Our middle child is not big in to screens, they like to draw and listen to music and use makeup kinda like face paint. They also play volleyball and are not home till 830 most school nights anyways. As a result, they probably only use ~3 or 4 hours of screens a week, not counting changing songs on Spotify.
If they were my bio kids and I’d been there their whole lives, I think they would all use screens less, except maybe the middle. As is, I am mostly glad it is no longer the primary form of entertainment for my middle child and that my youngest is so active.
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I mostly automate it: Their phone won’t function after bedtime (except for emergency use like calling 911), their devices cannot connect to the network until morning, and physical access is restricted unless it’s the appropriate time.
How are you automating the wifi shutting of during specific hours? This is something I’d like to implement
The wifi itself isn’t shutting off, it’s just blocking certain computers and if they are smart enough to manually change their MAC address, you would need to revert to controls local to their machines, but on my home router, it’s a standard feature: I just logged into the local DNS web app for managing the router and added the MAC addresses.
For local device management, it varies depending on the device but broadly speaking there are usually built in parental controls for most Microsoft/Android/Apple devices: It’s just a matter of configuring them.
That said, a low-tech solution to this if you didn’t care if your network went down would be to either manually turn it off or attach it to a timer to automatically shut it off. I don’t go this route because I still want Internet after bedtime and sometimes do overnight downloads/updates.
Gotcha, yeah that makes sense. I have a google wifi mesh and I’m sure it has some features like that I can set up. Thanks!
I’ve no kids of my own. This is mostly about my experience. I grew up with tv, internet, and video games. I used to have a portable screen that played dvds and a music cd player. I grew up watching cartoons on satellite then cable TV. I played on the ps1, ps2, PS3, and psp. I surfed the web on desktop computers, my folks used to have an old Compaq then later an HP Pavillion. I didn’t have an actual smartphone till mid way through middle school. My folks limited my screen time.
My little brother on the other hand has been glued to his tablet since age 3. My folks limit his time, but his tablet is all he’s ever known and he’s inseparable from it. I didn’t really start getting sucked into tech and screens till age 10 when I got my first PS3 and even then I was pretty well rounded.
I don’t have kids of my own, but whenever I let other people’s kids use my phone I block access to all apps except the ones I pick and have a screen time limit if they’re young, if they’re above 10/ mature enough, I don’t limit their usage at all and just trust them to not abuse my trust.
They don’t have tablets. My oldest has my old phone with everything blocked except a GBA emulator, music, and some educational games recommended by their teachers. They have a couple switch lites and we have one TV with Disney+, Netflix, and Youtube. I set up Youtube Kids profiles for them with whitelists so they can only watch channels I have specifically chosen for them. I don’t limit screen time, though. They don’t actually spend that much time watching TV or playing video games, and I’m pretty much always there with them when they do so I can talk with them about what they are watching or playing. I know it’s not the same for every kid but mine really don’t get sucked into screens. I’ve never been strict about it, even when they were babies. They usually can’t even finish a movie without getting bored and going to play outside or with actual toys.
We all have adhd so I thought screens would be a bigger challenge. I guess I got lucky.
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