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Two of my sisters have in total 3 kids (4 to 6 years old) and all three of them need to watch youtube videos while eating. Just few days back, my sister had a

• brozaman 4y ago
  I don't think it's so much not being allowed to be outside but the education that they got, the confinement ended 2 years ago and kinds have very flexible brains. My older niece will be 5 next month and she is NEVER allowed to have cartoons while eating and she doesn't do it and doesn't miss it. However one of my best friends has a kid born the same month and she always has a phone every time I see her. I also tell you that if I have a child of my own they aren't trying fucking ketchup, the thing with my niece and ketchup isn't even close to reasonable. Kids can get a nasty habit very easily, youtube, ketchup, etc. Pretty much everything can become a problem if it's not cut down.
• fragmede 4y ago
  The "solution" is to not expose them to YouTube in the first place. Worked so far, for several families I know.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    And/or be “the bad guy” who implements rules and limits
    • ChewFarceSkunk 4y ago
      Trying to be good at all times is a tremendous trap. They don't say that good intentions pave the road to hell for no reason.
    • PenguinCoder 4y ago
      Be the bad guy. As a parent, you're not your kids beast friend. You shouldn't be. You should be setting examples and teaching them to be good, upstanding, reasonable adults. This involves telling them no and setting boundaries. Fair, firm and consistent.
      • Eupraxias 4y ago
        Agreed - though I would add rationally empathic. I've found that if I follow-up, immediately, with an understanding of my child's perspective, they are more on-board with what I am modeling. Then, it's not just about me being the authority, but me demonstrating why I have 'a better idea'. It makes it almost effortless to be fair, firm, and consistent, and was the one thing missing from my own rather draconian childhood.
• e1g 4y ago
  COVID absolutely warped kids’ brains in ways we will not understand for decades, but also kids seem to have a hardwired affinity for other kids. For example, I have a two year old who has never seen Youtube/Netflix/TV and has a revolving door of playmates. She loves “reading” books with us, and her non-negotiable toddler “preference” is always for books with photos of other kids. Not animals or cartoons or fun drawings etc. Occasionally we show her photos on our phones and she swipes fast until she finds photos of babies/kids.
  • throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Covid didn't do anything to children, the reaction to covid from governments and parents did.
    • Jolter 4y ago
      Technically correct! The best kind of correct.
      • e1g 4y ago
        Those silly parents, overreacting by dying, losing their jobs, and and not being available 100% during a generation-defining global crisis of confidence.
        • prmoustache 4y ago
          hmmm I was generally not that much available during confinment while the kids were kind of let on their own at home... But there are so many things they did with just fabrics, colored papers, pencils, paint, glue, tape and things in general. I let my daughters on their own for hours without a screen. Sometimes they would complain about not knowing what to do and wanting to watch a show but when I give them hard no I perfectly knew I will find them hours later totally entertained having made a big mess in their room by building things, be them clothing for their puppets, decors for their figurines, cardboard swords and axes, building a giant lego construction, among other things.
        • 4y ago
• scotty79 4y ago
  Eating is immensly boring and I hated it as a kid. I wish I had something to distract myself from the boredom of eating. Despite not having anything like that as a child I now, at 43, eat all my meals in front of a computer while gaming or watching or reading something.
  • prmoustache 4y ago
    > Eating is immensly boring and I hated it as a kid. I wish I had something to distract myself from the boredom of eating. This is usually the time people use to have social multigenerationnal social interactions. Outside of weekends parents have stuff to do all day long, kids have to do their homework, then like to immerse in playing. Sometimes kids and parents spend sometime on a specific game, cards and board games are nice for that, but time is usually against them midweek. Meals and Dinner are those time when family member reconnect and chat. There is no reason to be bored unless your family is totally dysfunctionnal. I would say even as a single adult, meal can be a perfect time to have that disconnected moment and just think for a little while. Maybe you should try it as an exercise if you don't have those moments in other times of the day.
  • i67vw3 4y ago
    When I was a kid, I too ate in front of TV even if parents/elders told to eat on table, and not in front of a screen. It is what kids will do. And I myself have seen this behaviour, presently for kids upto the age of 10 years old (born around 2010), but the behaviour of newer kids born 3-4 years back is quite weird/concerning to me.
  • TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Eating is immensely boring and I still hate it as an adult. The food is nice, but I really need to have my mind occupied by something even remotely useful/interesting during that time. Which is why I'm writing this comment now while eating my dinner.
    • ryandrake 4y ago
      I still wolf down my lunch at work so I can get back to the problem I was working on. Just like I wolfed down my dinner as an 11 year old so I could get back to my Commodore 64. Finally, a comment thread from the point of view (and empathy) of the immensely bored kid. Kids throughout history couldn't wait to get through dinner so they could go back to the TV or to the radio or to whatever other fun thing they wanted to do. There's nothing abnormal about this.
• prawn 4y ago
  I have three children in the 4-10 yo range. They like screens, and very occasionally they might continue watching a movie while having a snack or weekend dinner, but otherwise it's avoided 99% of the time. I've observed other children unable to eat without a screen adjacent and would never allow it to develop as a habit. I find it incredible that parents have allowed this to form as some sort of crutch. Just boggles my mind. I don't think it has much to do with the pandemic era. It's parents caving when they should hold firm. It would've happened regardless. On the other hand, I know one couple with children who are quite firmly against screens almost at all, but it seems unnecessarily miserly. There is excellent content on YouTube (I watch Asian street food videos with my children, or woodworking or Mark Rober's channel occasionally) and I'd rather my kids experience many games ahead of passive TV viewing. Better to play (e.g., Minecraft or Goat Simulator) than watch another kid play the same thing.
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  In our family we have the older kids read aloud during dinner while the younger ones eat (0-11 age range).
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I think there's also some "monkey see, monkey do" at play. Many parents scroll their devices endlessly. It's no surprise their kids want to as well. If you don't want your kids to do it, lead by example. That's easier said than done though.
• prmoustache 4y ago
  Honestly that is probably because the parents themselves are watching stuff. Having a screen powered on in the room you are eating* and or generally having social interactions sounds mind blowingly stupid to me. *I would say except from the occasionnal twice a month pizza / popcorns in front of a movie. My kids are 9 and 12 now and their computer/tablet/phone/switch is in a shelve in a specific room and they perfectly know they will be punished if they use them without asking me. And time is always limited. They are now using the tablet more as a drawing tool on Krita and to play music than anything. When asked for music I sometimes allow more time but I am doing regular checks that they aren't glued to the screen.
• api 4y ago
  While this isn’t good I certainly recall having TV on during meals when I was a kid in the 1990s and know many older people who eat watching TV. Not sure this is new.
  • i67vw3 4y ago
    I have replied to another comment on your topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34640384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34640384
• visarga 4y ago
  My kid has had youtube since birth. I would play nursery songs before 1 y.o. Later he was onto toy car and lego videos. Now he is 5, a couple months ago he discovered NumberBlocks and learned to count, first in English and later in our native tongue. And not just counting, they also teach addition, subtraction and simple multiplication. He can count to 100 and has concepts of thousand, million and even minus one - he wants to know if it is between 0 and 1 :) Then he discovered AlphaBlocks and learned most letters, but he says the letters in English. Youtube has really been one of his nannies. I don't believe in restricting his access unless he gets obsessed with the tablet. But he plays with legos and blocks most of the time. And the future is digital, I want him to be a digital native. Maybe not all kids react the same way, so every case is sui-generis.
  • ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
    I'm similar. My approach is "guidance and bumper guards, not rules and restrictions." I don't meter or numerically limit screen time, but I make sure my kids understand they should have a healthy balance between activities (guidance) and if I feel like they've been e.g. watching TV all morning, I'll tell them to turn it off and pick a different activity (bumper guards). I only really have three rules: 1. I don't negotiate with terrorists. If you throw a fit, I will help you calm down, but any negotiation for whatever it is you wanted immediately ends, settled in my favor. 2. Everyone sleeps in their own beds. I'll make exceptions for exceptional circumstances (severe illness etc) but I haven't had to yet. 3. Family dinner is at the table with all devices off while the whole family is there. I've never felt like this served me poorly, and (so far...) none of my kids have some problems I've noticed or heard of family members or friends having with their kids (kid is 5 and won't sleep alone, kid throws fits in the supermarket for toys or snacks, etc). I obviously don't know that has a causal relationship with my parenting style, but like everyone else, I like to think it does.
• silveroriole 4y ago
  How many adults would eat happily if you took their phones and TV away? I reckon most of them would get just as perturbed and restless as the kids. I think it’s fairly normal really and we only find it odd because it’s an ipad now… I always had a book at the dinner table as a kid, there’s the stereotype of dad reading the paper at the breakfast table, many families eat dinner with the TV on, restaurants give kids activity menus, etc.