14 ms·

There's a certain irony in this. By putting restrictions on kids (no screens, digital downtime, etc), we expect them to become self-driven. This is a great idea

There's a certain irony in this. By putting restrictions on kids (no screens, digital downtime, etc), we expect them to become self-driven. This is a great idea in theory, but it also seems pretty likely that a kid will go to their friends house to watch Youtube videos, when I would just as soon have them (and their friends, if necessary) at my house doing that where at least I have some sense of what they are watching.

bubbleRefuge 9y ago
I cut the cable thinking that would make a difference, but youtube and Netflix have infinte content. Back in the days of broadcast only TV, you watch your show and its over, go play.
- organsnyder 9y ago
  The main advantage to Netflix (and YouTube, with a Red subscription) is the lack of advertising. My kids probably see 1/20th the number of ads that I saw growing up.
  - stinkytaco 9y ago
    My daughter, who's primary video consumption is on Youtube, has started to get to the age that she's concerned about fashion, decoration, etc. I realized that she's getting a lot of this from Youtube, not via direct advertisements, but via "influencers" who have been "encouraged" to place a product, either via money or free products. In some ways this is far more insidious. At least with ads you can learn to tune them out, it's a whole new skill to identify where you are seeing paid product placement.
    - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
      ^ this is just as bad. At least a lot of the youtube videos I watch are often sponsored by e.g. squarespace which is neutral enough. But those are unblockable ads, basically. ...just like a lot of cartoons were back when we were growing up, Transformers and He-Man and even Star Wars were all advertisements for toys (although in Star Wars' case the toys came after the movie. Still made them several times what the movies made them though). No such thing as free content.
    - chaosite 9y ago
      But there used to be such a thing as free content. Like the Flash animations I used to watch on albinoblacksheep and newgrounds in middle school, and early YouTube.
      - detaro 9y ago
        It's still around, and not necessarily less of it. But it easily get drowned out by the sheer volume of other content.
    - astura 9y ago
      I don't know how old your daughter is, but young children haven't fully developed their cognitive skill to fully "understand" advertisements http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.aspx http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.as... >Basic developmental research on egocentrism and perspective taking, along with a great deal of evidence specifically examining developmental differences in the comprehension of persuasive intent within advertisements, establishes clearly that most children younger than 7–8 years of age do not recognize the persuasive intent of commercial appeals. However, there is far less research examining whether and at what ages children begin to appreciate that advertising messages are inherently biased or on when children begin to develop strategies to counteract the bias within these messages. It is clear that both of these abilities are dependent upon the child’s development of the ability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising, meaning that mature comprehension of advertising occurs no earlier than age 7–8 years on average.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    My son has managed to become obsessed with fashion brands from audio podcasts. It’s amazing how this stuff gets into the house.
  - oreo81 9y ago
    I guarantee your kids see just as many if not more ads than you did growing up. They may not look the same to you but they're there. Seriously, if you think ads have decreased over time then you've completely lost the idea of what an ad is.
  - munificent 9y ago
    Alas, that isn't the case. Your kids see 1/20th of the explicitly obvious ads, and probably 20x the product placements, Instagram "brand ambassadors", and other subtle tricks that advertisers devised to get past our ability to mental filter out clearly-marked ads.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    Absolutely. But with a lot of Youtube content aimed at kids, Youtubers are definitely promoting products indirectly.
- eddieplan9 9y ago
  I do the old-school thing of buying shows by episode on iTunes for this particular reason (even if the shows are available for "free" in Netflix or Amazon). My kid gets one new episode per week, and she only watches from the iTunes library, which is a self-throttle because it gets boring after a while because it's the same set of episodes. She also learns more from every show and can remember the name of species and their habitats etc way better because she has watched most shows dozens of times after some time.
- wvenable 9y ago
  You might also be forced to consume more challenging content because literally nothing else is on. I remember watching the original Star Trek on Sunday mornings as a young child because nothing else was on. If cartoons were on 24/7 I might never have explored that.
Alex3917 9y ago
The reason it's recommended that kids under age two have zero screen time has nothing to do with the content though, it has purely to do with whether the rapidly changing imagery is increasing the risk for ADHD and damaging their executive function or whatever.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  As shown by which experimental studies? Or perhaps good epidemiology at least?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    Decent epidemiology for the harms combined with other studies showing no benefit from screen time.
- brewdad 9y ago
  I had always heard that it had to do more with the development of their eyesight. Young children need visual stimulus across a range of distances to reduce the risk of vision problems when they are older. It may by BS. I don't really know.
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    That might be true, but (iirc) it’s not the AAP’s stated reason for their recommendation.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  It's not just their executive function. It's their sense of time. In much video, a cut[1] happens every three seconds (I don't know if this is true for specifically children's video). This tunes their sense of time - if you don't like what you're looking at, in three seconds it will be completely different. That's not what life was like when I grew up; it's not what life was like for any generation before mine. It seems to me that there has to be some effects from this... [1] A "cut" in video is an instantaneous change of viewpoint (so called because, back in the film days, the only way you could get it was by physically cutting and splicing the film).
tboyd47 9y ago
For some reason, whenever I hear parenting advice (especially related to technology usage) and see that it's from someone my parents' age, I automatically stop listening. I feel like they are so far removed from the challenges of parenting in this decade that they have nothing to offer us. Not that our challenges are harder than theirs, but just that they're such a different set of challenges that we can't relate to each other.
- zwieback 9y ago
  "automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.
  - tboyd47 9y ago
    It feels like the difference between the parent as a judge and a guide and the parent as a manager and secretary. My parents seemed to worry more about preventing kids from getting into trouble or making the wrong friends. My wife and I worry more about how to get them out of the house and make friends, period... and I hear this sentiment echoed every so often on HN (this being one of them). How do you get teenagers to go outside and interact with other teenagers? That would not even be a question 30 years ago. The question would be how to stop them from doing so. The advice I hear from the older generation so often just comes down to, "let kids be kids," but what about when you have to actually teach (and in some cases, force) kids to be kids? For my kids to have a healthy childhood, I almost have to create that childhood for them.
    - zwieback 9y ago
      Yeah, it can be tough. We sometimes kicked our kids out of the house and didn't go out with them. It helps to have a yard and other neighborhood kids in that case.
    - bg4 9y ago
      Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.
monkmartinez 9y ago
I don't expect my kids to be "self-driven", in the sense of "productive" when I restrict screen time. They can literally do whatever they want... if that is mope around bored as hell, so be it. If that is digging a hole in the back yard, so be it. If that is getting into a little trouble somewhere down the street, so be it. If they want to read the latest "Diary of a wimpy kid", so be it. The only thing I am after is some kind of interaction with the physical world where they are making the decisions. I have no idea if that is the right thing to do, but it feels like it is.
- zachlatta 9y ago
  I deeply and thoroughly don't understand this mindset. Whether you like it or not, technology is part of growing up in the 21st century. It's not just an "outlet" or a place to waste time on YouTube, it's interwoven into everything in their lives. Their ability to gather information depends on it. Their social lives depend on it. Just as yours does. If you restrict access, you're pretending like a very crucial part of living today doesn't exist -- or isn't as important as it actually is. At the end of the day, I'd imagine your goal is for your child to have a happy and healthy life. As part of that, you probably want them to have a healthy relationship with technology. Restricting access instead of helping them build that healthy relationship just leads to them wanting to do things like go to the houses of friends to watch YouTube. I know this because I lived it and that's exactly what I did.
  - noxToken 9y ago
    > Restricting access instead of helping them build that healthy relationship just leads to them wanting to do things like go to the houses of friends to watch YouTube. I know this because I lived it and that's exactly what I did. I think restricting screen time is part of building the healthy relationship. We're not an all digital society, so kids still need to interact with the outside world - this includes people. Think about how vile people can be on the Internet when the person they're shouting at is a faceless username. Breaking this immersion to have your kid run up the street to watch YouTube videos with a friend is a bit different than doing it alone. You can explain that your child's friend is also online behind and anonymous username, so if they intend to say something mean to someone, you can say that the child may be hurting their own friend's feelings without even knowing it. Restricting access doesn't have to be a "back in my day!" spiel. Sometimes it's exploring other avenues of entertainment. Sometimes it's partial restriction like reading for 30 minutes. Sometimes it's just making sure that the child still has a foot grounded in reality. I'm a huge advocate for a connected world, but even as a developer, I still have to talk to my colleagues to my left and to my right.
bobthechef 9y ago
Giving children control doesn't mean anything goes. There's a huge difference between telling your children what to do and telling them what not to do. The problem is the former i.e. when parents schedule every minute of the day, telling their kids what to do. Laying down the law i.e. forbidding them from doing certain things can set healthy boundaries without telling kids what to do within those boundaries. So yeah, no social media, no wasting away in front of a screen. They might disobey, but at least it is clear in their minds what the house rules are. Rationalizing permissiveness at home because ostensibly it lets you monitor them is precisely the wrong idea. It legitimizes the activity in their minds through your parental authority and is just another example of parental hovering. The more widely we recognize the proper duties of parents, the more successful it will be since communities can reinforce the effectiveness of parenting. If all of my kid's parents ban the use of social media, it will be difficult for my child to make use of it at a friend's house. P.S. Nice nick.
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  In a vacuum I agree. But the world isn't a vacuum. If I can encourage my children to experiment in a safe space and give them the skills they need to sort out what they are seeing, they are better off doing it under my supervision than under someone else's or no one's. I posted above about how my daughter sees advertising not as I did, but via influencers who are subtly pushing a product or lifestyle. A tween does not have the skills to discern this and if I can say "look, I know that you like this Youtuber, but you should understand that they don't necessarily like what they say they like", I can at least give them a lesson. I can't do that if I don't know what they are watching or doing. I have no screen times in my house. I'm not opposed to the idea, but to call "quiet time", or "dinner time", or "bedtime" "radical digital downtime" is bullshit. If it is radical it's out of touch with modern life and if it's what most of us do anyway, it's just a marketing term to sell a book. And I can't control other kids parents, I can't make them ban screen time or social media, I can only try to stay on top of what my kid is doing and try to teach. I do that by giving her the space to explore those things like I would give her the space to explore anything she might be interested in.
- token_throwaway 9y ago
  100% - I don't think this article responsibly differentiated between the ideas of boundary-setting and control. The author (I think) actually means to say that we should try and make kids anti-fragile by letting them make choices and exploring the consequences, within healthy & safe boundaries. But anyway thanks academia for turning this ancient parenting wisdom into a whole book we can overanalyze
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ElongateMuskrat 9y ago
Also an irony in criticizing both devalued community and people living at home in their twenties/thirties. In many (most?) non-American cultures, emphasizing collectivist/communal values goes hand-in-hand with living at home in your twenties, which is deemed perfectly normal. In fact, I would say it's more abnormal on a global scale to kick your kids out at 18.
baoha 9y ago
Agree, one thing I observe in many kids that have screen-time restriction is that they tend to sneakily watch at any chance they can find: at their friend house, at BestBuy, Target,.. you name it. Since my daughter turned 3, I allowed her to watch 1 hour/day (2 hours during weekend), and have been very consistent to this rule. After a few weeks, she voluntarily turns off her iPad after the quota ends and plays with her toys, lego,... And she shows no desire to sneakily watch like other kids that being restricted, and never throws tantrum over it. I don't know if this is considered "self driven" but I'm very happy with the way she behaves. Technology is part of our life, don't understand why parents chose to exclude it from their kids.
casparMax 9y ago
The reason for amerikkkan kids' lazyness is that they realize and feel that life is easy in parasite amerikkka, sucking the toil of third world workers. The same for the sense of entitlement. And of racist beliefs of being smarter, more productive etc. As all amerikkkans on HN. For reference read the books by Zak Cope, John Smith, Samir Amin etc. On First World parasitism.
creep 9y ago
When I was a kid I was mostly "self-driven". As in, whatever I wanted to do, it was pretty much okay with my mom-- barring stupid shit, you know. The problem with this is that I desperately needed direction. I didn't really know what was possible for me to do, and so I tended to stick with what I already knew, especially because I was without an internet-connected computer as a young kid. I was never pushed to go beyond my comfort zone. If I didn't want to enroll in sports-- no problem. If I didn't want to do homework-- no problem! From my perspective now, I think I would have greatly benefited from some decent structure and discipline. I have that now (er, it comes and goes) but I would have liked to have been taught how to swim before I was pushed into the freezing depths of adulthood without a lifejacket.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Almost as if you need a balance....
wufufufu 9y ago
This assumes that kids would prefer watching digital video above all else. Just get a trampoline or something. The friends will come over. If watching is what your kids truly prefer in life, then my view is that you're not going to change that.
snambi 9y ago
Watching too much ipad or phone does impact the kids' eye sight. Also kids are super restless and angry when they are glued to a mobile device. Otherwise their behavior is normal.
io23h89y23hj 9y ago
You're seeing it in a rather reductionist way, IMO The goal is to get them to foster an internal sense of agency and imagination, etc. TV is just the mind absorbing others creative endeavors. Think like Bezos wife was recently quoted regarding their kids using knives: rather have a kid missing a finger than one who is incurious

bubbleRefuge 9y ago

I cut the cable thinking that would make a difference, but youtube and Netflix have infinte content. Back in the days of broadcast only TV, you watch your show and its over, go play.

organsnyder 9y ago
The main advantage to Netflix (and YouTube, with a Red subscription) is the lack of advertising. My kids probably see 1/20th the number of ads that I saw growing up.
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  My daughter, who's primary video consumption is on Youtube, has started to get to the age that she's concerned about fashion, decoration, etc. I realized that she's getting a lot of this from Youtube, not via direct advertisements, but via "influencers" who have been "encouraged" to place a product, either via money or free products. In some ways this is far more insidious. At least with ads you can learn to tune them out, it's a whole new skill to identify where you are seeing paid product placement.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    ^ this is just as bad. At least a lot of the youtube videos I watch are often sponsored by e.g. squarespace which is neutral enough. But those are unblockable ads, basically. ...just like a lot of cartoons were back when we were growing up, Transformers and He-Man and even Star Wars were all advertisements for toys (although in Star Wars' case the toys came after the movie. Still made them several times what the movies made them though). No such thing as free content.
  - chaosite 9y ago
    But there used to be such a thing as free content. Like the Flash animations I used to watch on albinoblacksheep and newgrounds in middle school, and early YouTube.
    - detaro 9y ago
      It's still around, and not necessarily less of it. But it easily get drowned out by the sheer volume of other content.
  - astura 9y ago
    I don't know how old your daughter is, but young children haven't fully developed their cognitive skill to fully "understand" advertisements http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.aspx http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.as... >Basic developmental research on egocentrism and perspective taking, along with a great deal of evidence specifically examining developmental differences in the comprehension of persuasive intent within advertisements, establishes clearly that most children younger than 7–8 years of age do not recognize the persuasive intent of commercial appeals. However, there is far less research examining whether and at what ages children begin to appreciate that advertising messages are inherently biased or on when children begin to develop strategies to counteract the bias within these messages. It is clear that both of these abilities are dependent upon the child’s development of the ability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising, meaning that mature comprehension of advertising occurs no earlier than age 7–8 years on average.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  My son has managed to become obsessed with fashion brands from audio podcasts. It’s amazing how this stuff gets into the house.
- oreo81 9y ago
  I guarantee your kids see just as many if not more ads than you did growing up. They may not look the same to you but they're there. Seriously, if you think ads have decreased over time then you've completely lost the idea of what an ad is.
- munificent 9y ago
  Alas, that isn't the case. Your kids see 1/20th of the explicitly obvious ads, and probably 20x the product placements, Instagram "brand ambassadors", and other subtle tricks that advertisers devised to get past our ability to mental filter out clearly-marked ads.
- wvenable 9y ago
  Absolutely. But with a lot of Youtube content aimed at kids, Youtubers are definitely promoting products indirectly.
eddieplan9 9y ago
I do the old-school thing of buying shows by episode on iTunes for this particular reason (even if the shows are available for "free" in Netflix or Amazon). My kid gets one new episode per week, and she only watches from the iTunes library, which is a self-throttle because it gets boring after a while because it's the same set of episodes. She also learns more from every show and can remember the name of species and their habitats etc way better because she has watched most shows dozens of times after some time.
wvenable 9y ago
You might also be forced to consume more challenging content because literally nothing else is on. I remember watching the original Star Trek on Sunday mornings as a young child because nothing else was on. If cartoons were on 24/7 I might never have explored that.

Alex3917 9y ago

The reason it's recommended that kids under age two have zero screen time has nothing to do with the content though, it has purely to do with whether the rapidly changing imagery is increasing the risk for ADHD and damaging their executive function or whatever.

AstralStorm 9y ago
As shown by which experimental studies? Or perhaps good epidemiology at least?
- Alex3917 9y ago
  Decent epidemiology for the harms combined with other studies showing no benefit from screen time.
brewdad 9y ago
I had always heard that it had to do more with the development of their eyesight. Young children need visual stimulus across a range of distances to reduce the risk of vision problems when they are older. It may by BS. I don't really know.
- Alex3917 9y ago
  That might be true, but (iirc) it’s not the AAP’s stated reason for their recommendation.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
It's not just their executive function. It's their sense of time. In much video, a cut[1] happens every three seconds (I don't know if this is true for specifically children's video). This tunes their sense of time - if you don't like what you're looking at, in three seconds it will be completely different. That's not what life was like when I grew up; it's not what life was like for any generation before mine. It seems to me that there has to be some effects from this... [1] A "cut" in video is an instantaneous change of viewpoint (so called because, back in the film days, the only way you could get it was by physically cutting and splicing the film).

tboyd47 9y ago

For some reason, whenever I hear parenting advice (especially related to technology usage) and see that it's from someone my parents' age, I automatically stop listening. I feel like they are so far removed from the challenges of parenting in this decade that they have nothing to offer us. Not that our challenges are harder than theirs, but just that they're such a different set of challenges that we can't relate to each other.

zwieback 9y ago
"automatically stop listening" is of course what young people always do to their elders but once the shoe is on the other foot you'll realize the wisdom of all that outdated advice. The details change but the basic patterns are eternally the same.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  It feels like the difference between the parent as a judge and a guide and the parent as a manager and secretary. My parents seemed to worry more about preventing kids from getting into trouble or making the wrong friends. My wife and I worry more about how to get them out of the house and make friends, period... and I hear this sentiment echoed every so often on HN (this being one of them). How do you get teenagers to go outside and interact with other teenagers? That would not even be a question 30 years ago. The question would be how to stop them from doing so. The advice I hear from the older generation so often just comes down to, "let kids be kids," but what about when you have to actually teach (and in some cases, force) kids to be kids? For my kids to have a healthy childhood, I almost have to create that childhood for them.
  - zwieback 9y ago
    Yeah, it can be tough. We sometimes kicked our kids out of the house and didn't go out with them. It helps to have a yard and other neighborhood kids in that case.
  - bg4 9y ago
    Possibly because the neighborhood is no longer considered "safe" for children to roam and explore.

monkmartinez 9y ago

I don't expect my kids to be "self-driven", in the sense of "productive" when I restrict screen time. They can literally do whatever they want... if that is mope around bored as hell, so be it. If that is digging a hole in the back yard, so be it. If that is getting into a little trouble somewhere down the street, so be it. If they want to read the latest "Diary of a wimpy kid", so be it. The only thing I am after is some kind of interaction with the physical world where they are making the decisions. I have no idea if that is the right thing to do, but it feels like it is.

zachlatta 9y ago
I deeply and thoroughly don't understand this mindset. Whether you like it or not, technology is part of growing up in the 21st century. It's not just an "outlet" or a place to waste time on YouTube, it's interwoven into everything in their lives. Their ability to gather information depends on it. Their social lives depend on it. Just as yours does. If you restrict access, you're pretending like a very crucial part of living today doesn't exist -- or isn't as important as it actually is. At the end of the day, I'd imagine your goal is for your child to have a happy and healthy life. As part of that, you probably want them to have a healthy relationship with technology. Restricting access instead of helping them build that healthy relationship just leads to them wanting to do things like go to the houses of friends to watch YouTube. I know this because I lived it and that's exactly what I did.
- noxToken 9y ago
  > Restricting access instead of helping them build that healthy relationship just leads to them wanting to do things like go to the houses of friends to watch YouTube. I know this because I lived it and that's exactly what I did. I think restricting screen time is part of building the healthy relationship. We're not an all digital society, so kids still need to interact with the outside world - this includes people. Think about how vile people can be on the Internet when the person they're shouting at is a faceless username. Breaking this immersion to have your kid run up the street to watch YouTube videos with a friend is a bit different than doing it alone. You can explain that your child's friend is also online behind and anonymous username, so if they intend to say something mean to someone, you can say that the child may be hurting their own friend's feelings without even knowing it. Restricting access doesn't have to be a "back in my day!" spiel. Sometimes it's exploring other avenues of entertainment. Sometimes it's partial restriction like reading for 30 minutes. Sometimes it's just making sure that the child still has a foot grounded in reality. I'm a huge advocate for a connected world, but even as a developer, I still have to talk to my colleagues to my left and to my right.

bobthechef 9y ago

Giving children control doesn't mean anything goes. There's a huge difference between telling your children what to do and telling them what not to do. The problem is the former i.e. when parents schedule every minute of the day, telling their kids what to do. Laying down the law i.e. forbidding them from doing certain things can set healthy boundaries without telling kids what to do within those boundaries. So yeah, no social media, no wasting away in front of a screen. They might disobey, but at least it is clear in their minds what the house rules are. Rationalizing permissiveness at home because ostensibly it lets you monitor them is precisely the wrong idea. It legitimizes the activity in their minds through your parental authority and is just another example of parental hovering. The more widely we recognize the proper duties of parents, the more successful it will be since communities can reinforce the effectiveness of parenting. If all of my kid's parents ban the use of social media, it will be difficult for my child to make use of it at a friend's house. P.S. Nice nick.

stinkytaco 9y ago
In a vacuum I agree. But the world isn't a vacuum. If I can encourage my children to experiment in a safe space and give them the skills they need to sort out what they are seeing, they are better off doing it under my supervision than under someone else's or no one's. I posted above about how my daughter sees advertising not as I did, but via influencers who are subtly pushing a product or lifestyle. A tween does not have the skills to discern this and if I can say "look, I know that you like this Youtuber, but you should understand that they don't necessarily like what they say they like", I can at least give them a lesson. I can't do that if I don't know what they are watching or doing. I have no screen times in my house. I'm not opposed to the idea, but to call "quiet time", or "dinner time", or "bedtime" "radical digital downtime" is bullshit. If it is radical it's out of touch with modern life and if it's what most of us do anyway, it's just a marketing term to sell a book. And I can't control other kids parents, I can't make them ban screen time or social media, I can only try to stay on top of what my kid is doing and try to teach. I do that by giving her the space to explore those things like I would give her the space to explore anything she might be interested in.
token_throwaway 9y ago
100% - I don't think this article responsibly differentiated between the ideas of boundary-setting and control. The author (I think) actually means to say that we should try and make kids anti-fragile by letting them make choices and exploring the consequences, within healthy & safe boundaries. But anyway thanks academia for turning this ancient parenting wisdom into a whole book we can overanalyze

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ElongateMuskrat 9y ago

Also an irony in criticizing both devalued community and people living at home in their twenties/thirties. In many (most?) non-American cultures, emphasizing collectivist/communal values goes hand-in-hand with living at home in your twenties, which is deemed perfectly normal. In fact, I would say it's more abnormal on a global scale to kick your kids out at 18.

baoha 9y ago

Agree, one thing I observe in many kids that have screen-time restriction is that they tend to sneakily watch at any chance they can find: at their friend house, at BestBuy, Target,.. you name it. Since my daughter turned 3, I allowed her to watch 1 hour/day (2 hours during weekend), and have been very consistent to this rule. After a few weeks, she voluntarily turns off her iPad after the quota ends and plays with her toys, lego,... And she shows no desire to sneakily watch like other kids that being restricted, and never throws tantrum over it. I don't know if this is considered "self driven" but I'm very happy with the way she behaves. Technology is part of our life, don't understand why parents chose to exclude it from their kids.

casparMax 9y ago

The reason for amerikkkan kids' lazyness is that they realize and feel that life is easy in parasite amerikkka, sucking the toil of third world workers. The same for the sense of entitlement. And of racist beliefs of being smarter, more productive etc. As all amerikkkans on HN. For reference read the books by Zak Cope, John Smith, Samir Amin etc. On First World parasitism.

creep 9y ago

When I was a kid I was mostly "self-driven". As in, whatever I wanted to do, it was pretty much okay with my mom-- barring stupid shit, you know. The problem with this is that I desperately needed direction. I didn't really know what was possible for me to do, and so I tended to stick with what I already knew, especially because I was without an internet-connected computer as a young kid. I was never pushed to go beyond my comfort zone. If I didn't want to enroll in sports-- no problem. If I didn't want to do homework-- no problem! From my perspective now, I think I would have greatly benefited from some decent structure and discipline. I have that now (er, it comes and goes) but I would have liked to have been taught how to swim before I was pushed into the freezing depths of adulthood without a lifejacket.

cortesoft 9y ago
Almost as if you need a balance....

wufufufu 9y ago

This assumes that kids would prefer watching digital video above all else. Just get a trampoline or something. The friends will come over. If watching is what your kids truly prefer in life, then my view is that you're not going to change that.

snambi 9y ago

Watching too much ipad or phone does impact the kids' eye sight. Also kids are super restless and angry when they are glued to a mobile device. Otherwise their behavior is normal.

io23h89y23hj 9y ago

You're seeing it in a rather reductionist way, IMO The goal is to get them to foster an internal sense of agency and imagination, etc. TV is just the mind absorbing others creative endeavors. Think like Bezos wife was recently quoted regarding their kids using knives: rather have a kid missing a finger than one who is incurious