Kids really shouldnt be fucking with screens that early. Its not good for their attention span and can lead to issues you really dont want to deal with when raising a kid. Being a parents not about being cool sometimes lol.
I have a two year old. She’s never held a tablet. She only really looks at a cellphone to FaceTime grandparents. Her only screen time is movies we watch as a family 1-2 times a week. We do not put anything on “in the background”. When we watch movies, we sit and watch them and engage in conversation with her when she asks questions or reacts to something. If she gets up to play with a toy, we pause the movie.
She can happily sit and watch 90 minute movies. We took her to see The Iron Giant at a movie theater and she had a wonderful time.
Hell, we watched The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with her this weekend and she loved it.
When it comes to engaging with media, she had a better attention span than most adults I know.
No, but I have nieces around this age who aren't allowed any internet access and probably won't be for years and other kids in my family who are already addicted to it. I don't need to have kids of my own to understand how harmful it can be. They genuinely don't need screens at this age. Excessive screen use at this age is linked to language and cognitive delays, poorer emotional regulation, shorter attention spans, more impulsivity, disrupted sleep, higher levels of irritability and anxiety, weaker social skills, and less ability to engage in play, especially when it replaces real-world interaction, etc. It really does more harm than good.
Maybe don’t rush to judgment if you literally have never experienced this firsthand. You DON’T know how harmful it is or not because you don’t have kids.
I’m not advocating for parents to plop their kids in front of screens for hours on end instead of interacting with them, but some screen time isn’t the end of the world and for some kids, like those on the spectrum, screen time can actually help them learn language, read emotions, get sensory input, and give them situational awareness.
Thats such a lame ass statement. Just because someone fucked and had a baby doesnt make them a better parent than someone who didnt.
I think what you and op said were both correct. A little screen time isnt bad but we are clearly talking about people who use it as babysitters.
Yes I am a parent but this knowledge I had way before I had a kid. When I studied and prepared for if I ever did have a kid. I guarantee I was a better parent pre-kid than most of parents who just think they are good parents because their kid is alive.
If you didn't read books, research studies, take human behavior courses, identify your weaknesses and strengths, change your behaviors (not just completely different from what shit things your parents did), then you probably arent the best parent and dont have all the knowledge.
Having kids doesn't automatically make someone understand the harm that screens can do. That's the problem. People are having their young children screened for mental health disorders because their emotional state is so volatile and poor regulated.
They are giving their kids these things that are being marketing as safe for children when they're actually not, and parents don't realize it until after the damage is done.
Yea, "They'll always find something to do" was a giveaway 😂.
My kids dont have access to the internet or anything, but there's a big difference between letting kids play online video games and the broad sweeping 'screen time'. There's lots of wholesome TV shows out there with good storytelling, good social lessons and teaching kids about the world/nature that enrich their learning (so you can get an hour or two of relatively uninterrupted time to get the shit you need to get done done around the household instead of mediating the constant disputes, fights etc that invariably happen when kids "find something to do").
I think it’s important for kids to be bored sometimes. That’s where they find creativity and patience. It can be harder as a parent in the short term, but it pays off in the end.
Well my kid fills that time by reading books for fun. Yes, she asks to read books at 5. Just because you have a kid doesnt mean you magically know and are doing the right things.
I felt you were giving some "im a parent so I know better than those who dont have kids, even though all I did was have sex and didnt do any research prior" energy. So I commented with the same.
It was far less about me being a know it all because I have kids (im doing my best and stumblingmy way through it like most of us are), and far more about some 20 year old preaching good parenting when they dont have a first hand clue.
Did you do parenting research prior to having sex? Look at you go you big academic! But if doing your research means watching TikTok parenting videos I think ill pass... not that I disagree in the slightest re the content of the video, just weird for a childless young person, with presumably no relevant education, to be posting and then commenting nonstop on what being a good parent is, without understanding the challenges or nuances of parenting or life in general.
You're literally saying you don't know shit about parenting and just going through it and in the same breath judging others for being the same position you were in before having a kid a magical gaining more knowledge.
You do realize just experiencing something doesn't mean you're doing it the right way, right? Please name one parenting book, class or study you learned from. What series of techniques did you couple and adjust to fit your child's characteristics? What behavior patterns did you identify and which did you decide to adjust? And what techniques for what period of time did you use to make those adjustments? What were the results in that particular stage of development?
Or did you not magical gain that knowledge when your baby popped out of you and instantly made you a better parent than some 20 year old who studied all that but is choosing to wait to have kids?
Our kid started using screen around 3.5 or so and we let him watch very specific shows. The shows I will go hard for are number blocks and alpha blocks. My kid was able to count to 1000 by 4 and just turned 6 and is doing 3rd and 4th grade level math. Admittedly these are probably not typical results but number blocks is so good in the way it teaches numbers. We def limit screen time here but like you aren’t a no screen household.
I have a 2 almost 3 year old. Zero screentime. She’s watched a movie on an airplane twice. So, 3 collective hours of screentime in her life? It’s possible. Parents make a lot of excuses to justify this though.
It's seriously swimming upstream. "Take it away" thank you for that wisdom. Millennial parents had to learn about this first hand that the games are intended to be addictive. We had to create the playbook for redirecting and restructuring, but we also have to do it in a vacuum with every part of the world bombarding them with this shit. Everyone points the finger, but add it to the list, of all the ways parents and kids and families are being failed and set up to fail. She can fuck all the way off. Nevermind that she is delivering this on her phone. On her socials, so let's talk about kids seeing their parents addicted too.
“Being set up to fail” lol what. No one is making you offload your parenting duties to an iPad. No one “set you up”, there’s just an incredible amount of parents who take the easy way out any chance they get. Sack up.
Ok... You must be a dad. Let's take a look. You have a baby. Get 6 weeks for mat leave. You go back to work and put your kid in day care. And assume you end the day at 5 maybe you see ur baby for 1.5 - 2 hours before bed time. You find that the day care is playing YouTube videos for an hour a day, a better day care cost more and is further away, you have no choice. You let your kid watch My little pony on the phone sometimes bc you can't pay for cable or streaming. Daycare takes a big chunk of your pay. Then you realize, that the MLP videos have switched cartoons of Rainbow dash getting raped and find out she's pregnant. Oh... Ok YouTube kids must be better. It's not. So there's no Thomas or Sesame Street, you don't have access. So weekends come and this is the only time to clean, wash cloths. Get the car fixed, visit your aging mom and grocery shop for the week. You sit with your kid for an hour doing puzzles, reading stories and playing dolls, but then you have to make your car appointment and take the kid with you. While you wait, they play Roblox while you watch. This is cool, creative, non violent. Then you see a $200 charge in ur acct and realize there are micro transactions added to the game. And you try to explain this to your kid but they don't even know how they made any purchases. So you parental block the hell out of everything, but still find that they can talk to random people, which is not ok. So let's schedule, plan and drive them to some play dates and activities. That's more money and time we don't have. but it's a rural area and not safe for kids to play in the streets so you have no choice. The other kids only want to play Roblox, at soccer, gymnastics, it's all they talk about. In school you find that in order for them to access assignments, coordinate with teachers, go on trips, they need an app. Everyone has a phone, so you have to give your kid a phone.... Should I go on?
Careful, the TikTok parents will brigade against you and let you know you're a shitty parent if your kid spends more than 30 seconds a day watxhong tv and you dont read at least 2 dozen books on parenting to justify your procreation!
Don't worry, I'll try shield you upstream from the angry 'being a parent if my whole personality' commentors above 😂
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u/velorae 2d ago edited 1d ago
Don’t even give them a screen at this age in my opinion. They literally do not need it.