My wife and I sent our son to a remote "boarding school" type school near where we live in Japan. No phones or electronics beyond an mp3 player are allowed. We're so lucky it is cheap and readily available here.
The school's policy isn't necessarily from a "phones bad mmmkay?" perspective, but from a "our ancestors had to figure stuff out for themselves, let's foster that" perspective.
It's true and it's also true that parent's would be criticized from the sidelines for allowing kids, even from a very young age to sit in front of screens for hours on end when i was a kid.
I have a friend who didn't have a television until the age of 12. If you ask which kids turned out well adjusted and which didn't it wasn't the one's with no screen time anymore than the one's with unlimited screen time. There's some reality to life people here aren't accepting and i can't see an issue with some level of hands off parenting that this enables quite honestly.
I know people are going to attack with some extreme of "you allow your kid to be raised by a tablet" or some such but these views are all so tiresome. The reality is that majority of kids have always been allowed some form of screen time and todays screentime is going to at least be more interactive than yesterdays screentime.
>The reality is that majority of kids have always been allowed some form of screen time and todays screentime is going to at least be more interactive than yesterdays screentime.
I say this as a parent - hogwash. Fred Rogers looked into children's souls and spoke to them deeply at a nice comfortable pace and kids felt that, whereas today's modern screens utterly eviscerate their attention spans.
> I say this as a parent - hogwash. Fred Rogers looked into children's souls and spoke to them deeply at a nice comfortable pace and kids felt that, whereas today's modern screens utterly eviscerate their attention spans.
I turned on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood for the first time for my son a few days ago. After a few minutes I asked how the show felt. "Relaxing".
We sat down and watched the Music episode together for 20 or so minutes.
Parents can choose what their kids watch and listen to. Ignore the feed.
You can do whatever mental gymnastics you need to justify parenting decisions. But a static device located in a common area in the home is no comparison a device that follows a child everywhere which they stare at alone.
The content of TV was also vastly different. There was a barrier to entry, not an infinite stream of brainrot content.
There is just no reason to give kids such devices at a young age, far better learning experiences exist until at least 9 years old.
My wife was worried our son would be "left behind". We talked about it and I pointed out he can already navigate photos, and Spotify to play an audio book; from just looking over our shoulders every now and then. Must be around 5 hours interaction in total (he is 4).
Poking a screen is barely a skill, less than a day and he would be caught up to all the kids that had been staring at one for hours a day since they were 3.
My wife and I sent our son to a remote "boarding school" type school near where we live in Japan. No phones or electronics beyond an mp3 player are allowed. We're so lucky it is cheap and readily available here.
The school's policy isn't necessarily from a "phones bad mmmkay?" perspective, but from a "our ancestors had to figure stuff out for themselves, let's foster that" perspective.
Curious about this school; I live in Japan with my family.
It's true and it's also true that parent's would be criticized from the sidelines for allowing kids, even from a very young age to sit in front of screens for hours on end when i was a kid.
I have a friend who didn't have a television until the age of 12. If you ask which kids turned out well adjusted and which didn't it wasn't the one's with no screen time anymore than the one's with unlimited screen time. There's some reality to life people here aren't accepting and i can't see an issue with some level of hands off parenting that this enables quite honestly.
I know people are going to attack with some extreme of "you allow your kid to be raised by a tablet" or some such but these views are all so tiresome. The reality is that majority of kids have always been allowed some form of screen time and todays screentime is going to at least be more interactive than yesterdays screentime.
This assumes TV and tablets are they same, they very much are not.
Your very point about them being more interactive is what makes them much more dangerous.
>The reality is that majority of kids have always been allowed some form of screen time and todays screentime is going to at least be more interactive than yesterdays screentime.
I say this as a parent - hogwash. Fred Rogers looked into children's souls and spoke to them deeply at a nice comfortable pace and kids felt that, whereas today's modern screens utterly eviscerate their attention spans.
> I say this as a parent - hogwash. Fred Rogers looked into children's souls and spoke to them deeply at a nice comfortable pace and kids felt that, whereas today's modern screens utterly eviscerate their attention spans.
I turned on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood for the first time for my son a few days ago. After a few minutes I asked how the show felt. "Relaxing".
We sat down and watched the Music episode together for 20 or so minutes.
Parents can choose what their kids watch and listen to. Ignore the feed.
You can do whatever mental gymnastics you need to justify parenting decisions. But a static device located in a common area in the home is no comparison a device that follows a child everywhere which they stare at alone.
The content of TV was also vastly different. There was a barrier to entry, not an infinite stream of brainrot content.
There is just no reason to give kids such devices at a young age, far better learning experiences exist until at least 9 years old.
My wife was worried our son would be "left behind". We talked about it and I pointed out he can already navigate photos, and Spotify to play an audio book; from just looking over our shoulders every now and then. Must be around 5 hours interaction in total (he is 4).
Poking a screen is barely a skill, less than a day and he would be caught up to all the kids that had been staring at one for hours a day since they were 3.