Comment by micromacrofoot
16 hours ago
It's kind of gross that people think the screens for kids phenomenon is "avoid parenting" — a two working parent household has very little time for anything and it's incredibly stressful (good luck if you're a single parent).
Yeah sometimes you want your kid to not scream the whole time in the car or on a 6 hour flight where everyone will hate you. My 4 year old niece once screamed for the entirety of a 30 minute car ride because she didn't like what color socks she was wearing, you can't talk yourself out of these absurd situations sometimes and distractions help. I'd love to give a book in these situations, but half the time it just gets thrown at your head.
Why does no one say "parents need more time and space" or "parents need help making effective choices in a world that constantly demands more of them" everyone loves crawling out of the woodwork to tell you how horrible you are.
So, they screamed for 30 minutes. They're kids. I'm not gonna give my 4 or 6 year-old something that's gonna take a hatchet to their attention span just because they're doing a thing that's completely normal for that age.
That drive fucking sucks ass, don't get me wrong, but oh well, that's part of life - the kid has to learn that sometimes shit's not gonna go their way and they have to figure out how to get over it. I'll be damned if I'm gonna teach them that the way they can calm themselves down and regulate their emotions is by the sweet, sweet blue hue of a tablet.
We're a two working parent household and we keep screen time limited to a short amount of TV time. We'll expose them to screens more and more so that we can properly educate them over time, sure. But man, I don't get the whole, "even a two working parent household barely has time for anything and is stressful," bit because - yeah, that's exactly what parenting is.
Parenting is hard. It's exhausting. If you don't have a village, the onus is on you to do it right. That's what we've signed up for, is giving our all to our kids until they're out on their own. That's what we're supposed to do. It's not supposed to be easy, it's a constant stress the likes of which you will never know until you're in it. But we're here, so let's do the hard work and do it right. We owe it to them.
Edit: You're right, we need time and space and the ability to make good choices, but neither of those should come at the expense of my kids.
I can't imagine having to raise kids with both parents working. Good on you and your partner for holding the line on screen time in spite of the difficulty.
> That drive fucking sucks ass, don't get me wrong, but oh well, that's part of life
Such a great attitude. Wish everyone saw it this way. I've tanked a few car rides like this but I'll do it a hundred more times before I throw a pacifier at my kids.
I wish people should just avoid talking about using tablets on flights altogether.
It's a non-issue. Toddlers/kids maybe fly once a month max. Using tablets during that time is negligible.
I wonder what parents did for thousands of years before screens came along.
They smacked their children. Not sure if we want to go there.
If a kid made a scene in public back in 1950, they would be smacked. In fact, in many countries in the world, people are still pro-smacking. Teachers can smack the kids with no moral issue.
Mental health for kids before 2000 was much worse... to be generous to the older generations.
People just continued on with their chores and let their kids run about. Kids were way less supervised and were allowed to be on their own. As another poster said, physical punishment was also very common.
I guess thats why we are also now seeing epidemics of young people that cant cope with independent modern life without constant support, and massive rises in mental health issues of young adults.
spent significantly more time at home and with their community, "it takes a village" isn't just a cute phrase
kids also roamed on their own quite a lot more with other kids
How much of screaming kids, is bad parenting? None of the kids in dual working parent, or single parent households that I grew up with, screamed.
Yeah because each kid is different? Kids are not factory products that you can just quality control. Germany even has a law specifically allowing kid noises[0].
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/16/germany-childr...
Probably not much.
have you spent any significant time with a child under 6
Yes, multiple kids under 6.
Did you try "the car won't go until you're quiet"?
They were on the way to the dentist
My kids are far from perfect angels, but they do just fine on a 5 hour flight with some colouring books, a small container of legos (with pieces pre-chosen to be ones we're okay with losing), and then the excitement of getting to order ANY drink they want (from their point of view).
I have 3 kids and it has dramatically changed my world view. They are all very different, despite being raised exactly the same. 1 or maybe 2 would do fine for 5 hours with colouring books and legos. The third absolutely would not. We still limit screen time to almost nothing so I'm not necessarily arguing with your overall point. But my honest reaction to comments like this or, worse, from people who aren't parents, is you really don't know. I'm not a single parent but, yea, imagine raising multiple kids who aren't as easy as yours on your own.
Every kid used to go on flights without a tablet. The only screen was the big movie screen at the front if the cabin.
This is the reality of parenting. I didn't believe it in my 20s when a manager at my company talked to me about this phenomenon, and then I parented more than one kid. It was a real eye-opener to live through what had only been an intellectual exeercise before. For a bunch of kids, the standard stuff works. Then there's the rest.
Not sure why you’re getting so strongly downvoted. The travel situations are the ones I find the most reasonable for tablet use. It’s definitely possible to keep a kid occupied for a 5 hour plane ride without a tablet but it takes work. Very few adults can raw-dog a 5 hour plane ride themselves, ffs. I may judge other parents for allowing tablet use in other situations, but not on an airplane.