Hi, I dont plan to have a child for at least a few years, but sometimes I think about how I would raise them. I think about how parents today let their kids use the internet pretty much unmonitored, and let them watch and bring them to movies that are by most accounts, just flashing colors. Theres a few good ones Ive heard about such as Bluey, or movies like Luca, but I really dont think I’d want my kid to be watching Cocomelon, Pinkfong (baby shark), or any movie put out by Illumination. I especially dont want to allow them to use any kid of social media during their developmental years. However, I know for a lot of kids this is the norm, and I really dont want my kid to get bullied or to hate me for not letting them have what their friends have. What do current parents about the environment their kids are growing up in, and what would be good things to consider as I start to get closer to the age where I feel comfortable taking care of a little fella?
A father to a 2-year-old here. We have a very strict “no screen” policy. If she watches something, it is with her mother, and it is generally a short clip of a kid doing some kind of activity with a caregiver. It is less than a few minutes a day tops and never every day.
I am super anxious about the smartphones and similar as well. I am not sure how my child is going to handle the peer pressure to get one, and how will we (as parents) be able to manage her wanting of a smartphone. I think I will follow a similar pattern to my childhood and will allow access to the internet only through a computer for a while, and there will have several restrictions to what she can access, maybe except for group-based online games, which we will screen who she is playing with and what is going on.
Jonathan Haidt is proposing a return to a "play-based childhood"1, and I am very positive about that approach. However, I am not sure if we will be able to get a buy-in for “no screens, no phones” policy with her school(s) and the parents of her schoolmates. That is to be seen. But these policies would probably affect the schools we will be choosing.
1 - If interested, check After Babel.
Its interesting you bring up schooling because its something Ive been thinking about as well. Ive heard great things about private schools and home schooling co-ops (not necessarily the super christian ones that basically only teach gospel), but I’m not sure where I’ll end up moving when me and my SO will want to commit to a child so I haven’t looked into it much. I would definitely prefer my kid is playing pretend over playing Roblox Cart Ride into Skibidi Toilet though. I wouldnt mind letting my kid on a screen for a couple hours a day, but only for video game consoles that have never had or no longer have internet access, unless Im playing with them. Unrelated but Ive always had a silly idea about raising my kid “through the decades”, just like giving them pieces of tech from each decade once a year starting from like 1930, like giving them only furniture, and then maybe a radio, a crt tv, a pong machine once a year. By the time theyre about 10 they can experience the magic of the N64 and PS1s huge graphical jump for the first time like millions of kids who were born before my time lol, but this is only a silly idea that I dont think I’ll actually enact on. I’ll have to look more into After Babel, it looks like some of their content is free but others are paid? I may be interpreting it wrong though, I mostly read the front page and about page.
For what it is worth, I’m middle aged and in my youth we played Mario Brothers and, later, Super Mario Brothers on televisions. But then we went outside and played a neighborhood game we made up called Koopa, loosely based around the Mario Brother’s lore. We spent far more time outside and interacting with one another than inside in front of a screen. I don’t think our outdoor play was worse for it being based on a screen-delivered universe than if we’d made up a game based on a book-delivered universe.
I don’t think screens, themselves, are the problem. I think forcing children to be solo-, inside-cats is the problem. And screens are often times a tool of that force. By the time children are of a certain age, they start to prefer what they know, which is why parents will say that their children don’t want to go outside and play with whomever. For whatever reason, parents around me are entirely too obsessively worried about dangers to allow their children to have chance encounters and a good, directionless wander. When kids play only with playdates they have to be driven to but don’t know their neighboring children, we have a problem. A big problem. Because it means spontaneous door-knocking “Can Johnny come out and play” play cannot occur. So of course they’ll pick a screen over acknowledging their loneliness.