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We have this thing at our house called "no screens" or "turn off your screens". I yell it out, and my kids from ages 10-18 turn it off. (The 18 year old is off
by dpcan 7y ago
We have this thing at our house called "no screens" or "turn off your screens". I yell it out, and my kids from ages 10-18 turn it off. (The 18 year old is off to college, but he used to as well).
There IS an exception. If the thing they choose to do with their time has online instructions or they will be learning from a tutorial, etc, then the screen can be used to a degree.
They start off bored. They may get ahead on some homework. The littlest one takes the longest to figure out what to do. Often times I ask if they want to play a board game, or go somewhere with me, walk the dog, etc. But if I'm in the middle of something else, it's up to them.
It takes a few minutes, but, before you know it, they're on the floor in their bedroom drawing, or building something elaborate out of cardboard, the LEGOs come out, or nerf darts start flying through the house.
And for the older kids, they will get out of the house, reach out to a friend, read a book, or study a new topic.
Being bored doesn't last long when you don't have a choice. The hardest part is getting started with that "something new".
- Izkata 7y ago> board game > drawing > cardboard > LEGOs > nerf darts > book Sometimes I wonder if people don't realize prep - actually having something to interact with - is needed for this to work.
- mycall 7y agoSticks, mud pies, trees, roof tops, yards, roads, sidewalks. All fun too, thanks nature and society.
- EvanAnderson 7y agoAbsolutely. I am blown away by how my 6 y/o daughter, raised so far w/ no "screens" and minimal exposure to video, can figure out how to make almost any natural material into a toy. It has been a challenge to keep rocks and plant matter from filling up our house.
- otakucode 7y agoYou are making the presumption that a modern parent would permit their child to go outside and play without going with them. The primary reason most kids don't want to play outside is because their parent goes with them and kills every single opportunity for fun.
- hanniabu 7y ago> parent goes with them and kills every single opportunity for fun Sad but true. I'm super self-conscious of dancing because when I was little my mom would always chaperone these events and watch me. Now I always feel like there's somebody standing around with nothing better to do but analyze my every move, judging who I'm talking to, saying, etc. When my friends come over I hate even talking to them in the house because I know she's listening. Same thing with phone calls in the house. I always need to go for a walk for that.
- PenguinCoder 7y agoOpposite problem with my kiddo. He is nine and doesn't want to go outside unless a parent goes with him.
- IggleSniggle 7y agoI would love to do this, but cannot in my location. Both because it would be too easy to step into fast moving traffic (age specific issue), and because people have been known to have CPS called on them for letting their child play unattended.
- gautamdivgi 7y agoWe've raised both our kids with "no-screens" (now 5 and 9 yrs old). They don't have their own devices and may not use ours. An exception is for the 9 yr old to use the laptop when learning to code at scratch.mit.edu. If they need to watch something - its a movie on the big screen in the evening only on if the next day is a school holiday. Yes - they turn almost anything into a toy. They have access to all sorts of stuff to build things - lego, clay (and clay sculpting tools), scissors and paper, plenty of board games, and outdoors even when cold and/or rainy.
- cvhashim 7y ago> 9 yr old to use the laptop when learning to code at scratch.mit.edu Wouldn't it just feel like a chore or homework at that point and not something you enjoy ?
- gautamdivgi 7y agoNot really. We don't push her to do it. It's not something that is scheduled or something. If she thinks of something with animals she likes to create an animation out of it on scratch.
- iikoolpp 7y agoHolding my child back developmentally to own the libs
- fastball 7y agoI know right? I doubt Socrates would've developed into such an intellectual powerhouse without his iPad as a young lad.
- nostrebored 7y agoThis is where I'm hoping to end up. People don't realize that a lot of people with large tech exposure severely restrict access to things like phones/laptops. Gates and Jobs come to mind iirc. There's tons of research showing that exposure to toys decreases creativity and the ability to play on your own with improvised toys. Learning how to use an operating system is trivial with the help of google. All of the arguments for letting your kids have unfettered access to electronics rest on the faulty assumption that familiarity is the important part of learning how to solve technical problems or to gain interest in technical subjects when there's just no consistent evidence to show this.
- soneca 7y agoI am not sure if this is indeed get bored. When I read the title and remembered my childhood, get bored meant that I would find a rock or watch ants. But mostly, get anything that resemble a sphere and play soccer
- sidlls 7y agoHaving nothing to interact with is also fine: one can play games like tag, hide-and-seek, "20 questions", etc. One time my oldest decided he'd like to go outside and make note of all the flowers he found for a while. He just kept track in his head and told us all about it after he came in.
- dredmorbius 7y agoI'd argue that preparation for downtime is in fact the key lesson.
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoHow in the world do your kids get together with friends without screens? Do they have prior notice? Serious question. I'm 40 and couldn't do that without a screen. I go off and play board games with some folks and we usually (but not always) use facebook to plan. A couple of folks don't have social media (by choice), but those folks aren't exactly taking phone calls nor does anyone really appreciate unexpected visitors. (I personally won't answer the door if I don't expect a visitor).
- zbentley 7y agoMy nephews, during no-screen time (which, for them, is usually a light punishment for something; my sister and I have not reached the level of practice that GP discussed), usually just go to their friends' houses. Their furthest friend lives about a mile away. The rest are nearby. For some reason, when this happens, they usually don't end up just doing screen stuff with their friends. No idea why. Maybe exercising to bike/walk to their friends' houses gets them in a play-outside mood? I admit it would be trickier for more remote kids, but in that situation asking a parent to set up a play-date (or making a no-screen exception for calling friends on the phone to schedule) would likely work well.
- amluto 7y agoI’m less than 40, and I grew up without screens. It wasn’t a problem. Phone calls work just fine.
- valine 7y agoAs someone who grew up with the internet and rules like this I can tell you that the only thing it taught me was how to game the system and use electronics without getting caught. It gives me anxiety just to think about it honestly. If you didn’t grow up with it you can’t understand how stressful it is to maintain friendships when your parents will randomly take away your phone. Its like being randomly grounded over and over for years.
- aspaceman 7y agoYeah seriously it sounds like you gave your kids anxiety. Congrats
- dang 7y agoPersonal attacks will get you banned here. Please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- toomuchtodo 7y agoAs a parent, I’m still going to try to instill good habits and behavior even if my kids attempt to subvert them (similar to financial responsibility, manners, or safe sex). Once you’re an adult, how you behave is up to you, but before then it’s still my job to help them understand how to be decent, functioning humans. Being a parent is hard, and mistakes are going to be made. Positive intent is important.
- notaparent 7y agoThe parents who forbid their kids to listen to Beatles or Metallica were also trying to instill good habits.
- scaryclam 7y agoI'm not entirely sure what your point is here. Yes, some parents did that. Did it wreck their kids lives? Or did those kids go over to a friends house and listen to it anyway?
- sandworm101 7y agoA few hundred years ago people said the same things about books. The drop in prices because of printing meant some well-off kids were reading too many books. The founder of Homeopathy famously forbade chess as it was "too stimulating". My father told me that if I watched too much TV my eyes would go square. Now he and I both work jobs that require us to stare at multiple screens for 10+ hours a day. My point: in every generation the parents complain that kids are spending too much time with the new form media. What they really want is for their kids to do what they did at the same age. Time moves forwards. Rather than pretend it is still the 1980s, parents should be more worried about their kids not being able to keep up with modern media. Can't bounce between multiple windows, researching this and that while answering emails and composing a policy document on the fly? Can't create a policy document from scratch, along with all necessary citations and formatting, in under an hour? Then you won't be doing my job. "Screen time" can be wasteful, but it is increasingly a necessary skill.
- ping_pong 7y agoI agree, I heard the same thing about comic books and D&D. Except the problem these days is that algorithms are preying on human weaknesses and taking advantage of addictive characteristics. Things like video games and youtube videos are purposefully making themselves so addictive that it's different from before. I'm not one to say "this time it's different" but this time it really is.
- cvhashim 7y agoI don't think comic book companies had teams of PhDs using all sorts of techniques to extract every bit of attention from people and kids, just to increase engagement metrics even slightly.
- sandworm101 7y agoHarry Potter. There are all sorts of similar tricks in there. They might not be in there deliberately, but the most popular books (aka "beach books") contain the same trickery. In literature, such tricks can include a short episodic narrative that negates any need for long-term retention of information (short chapters). Reward centers of the brain are triggered by predictable plots. The reader feels smart when they are able to predict what it coming. Banal subject matter also helps get the product into the hands of kids (a book about a wizard school, or a game about farming rather than a casino). Then you wrap a community around the product. You give people the opportunity to advertise their participation and success with the product. You sell the knickknacks to display to their friends. Then you ensure the product has no end. You spread everything out over years so that, no matter how much they pay today, there will always be another purchase to make in the future. Star Trek has been described as addictive, I think that can be extended to Harry Potter. I'd bet good money that Disney has people working to keep Star Wars as addictive as possible.
- deanCommie 7y agoI'll give you LEGO and cardboard, but in what sense are nerf darts or boardgames meaningfully different or better from a skill-based videogame?
- hutzlibu 7y agoBecause you use your full body for it. More with nerf, less with board games, but still a different body sensation.
- jclardy 7y agoI’d say physical activity and face-to-face interaction.
- filoleg 7y agoThey are not. It’s just that neoludditism seems to run pretty strong in certain communities. Makes people feel different and special
- tomjen3 7y agoNerf darts are different in that they require physical movement and better hand-eye coordination. Board-games are just substandard video games.
- hutzlibu 7y agoDo you yell it out randomly? If so, do you feel good about your power, to disrupt any digital activity of your children? How would you feel, anybody doing this to you?
- learnstats2 7y agoI would agree that is really a display of power, and not a good one. They are learning to manage this kind of situation, for sure: that is, random disruption. I see them learning peculiar time management strategies that they will have to unlearn as adults. I see them learning that their efforts on medium-difficulty tasks are often going to be randomly wasted and are therefore not worth bothering with.
- fastball 7y agoWhat exactly are you imagining these kids doing on these screens that are A. "medium difficulty" B. previous effort will immediately be wasted if they turn it off?
- fastball 7y agoWhat kind of logic is this? I don't like it when someone tells me what to do, but I'll be damned if I let my kids run wild and do whatever they want.