To think screens aren’t the issue, parents who can’t say no are?

I think it’s much more nuanced than that. I model very badly for my kids as I always have my phone with me but it’s literally the only way I can do anything - pay for parking, order at a restaurant sometimes, get school reports etc etc. My daughter is s2 and all her schoolwork is on her school iPad so she’s on it all day and half the evening. So if you want to reduce any of this it’s not as simple as saying people are lazy parents. I trend on the strict side of screens - no online gaming or social media outside WhatsApp. Phone turns off at bedtime, limits on apps and my son is almost the only one in his p5 class without a phone. But even I admit this is only a tiny proportion of the full screen time my kids get.

It’s both. Many parents hand their child a tablet to
watch videos like reels, YouTube etc and have no idea what else the algorithms are showing their kids.

The age at which some kids know about and watch social media gets lower and lower and it’s really sad.

That doesn't glue you to a screen necessarily.

Doom scrolling and the constant checking of social media takes more time than admin.

I ask again, how old are your kids? Mine are 16 and 13 and it's a daily battle to get them off the bloody things. All their homework is set on them for one thing. Save turning off the broadband (meaning we can't work), and binning the smart TV, gaming devices, ipad, laptops and chromebooks, what do you suggest? Genuine question, it's like bloody whack-a-mole in our house and I have full sympathy with parents who've given up in the trenches.

This, and what @3oldladiesstuckinalavatory said.

Young kids? Totally up to the parents. Older? Much more complex. Life is now screen based and it’s absolutely not just up to the parents.

You’re not genuine, you’re just trying to start a bun fight.

Aibu?

@3oldladiesstuckinalavatoryout of the house you have no control but in the house you have full control over screen time

If screens are such a problem then why do schools put kids on them all day? The blackboard has been replaced with a giant touchscreen and my son's class are given ipads to do maths and spellings apps on every day for long periods of time.

I think screens are fine, but certain types of content are not. There's a huge difference between a child watching a David Attenborough documentary and a child watching endless 30 seconds skibbidy toilet brainrot loops. This whole discussion requires nuance and I'm sick of electronics being demonised because of some problematic content that can be found on some of them.

I agree - but how can we not be "glued to a screen" when that's how the whole of society has now been arranged, to suit shareholders. You used to be able to pick up a phone to arrange something, or just turn up. School coms were once a week, by paper news letter. Not a billion emails, apps, bots and the general misery of daily family admin, now all done on a phone.

I think it's a bit more nuanced than one or the other. Screens are more prevalent than ever before, and becoming more and more unavoidable as schools adopt their usage as standard.

While I do think soft parenting is somewhat at fault, I also think the wider normalisation of constant screen usage plays a part too. I mean here you and I are on a Sunday afternoon looking at screens for entertainment when we could be reading a book or out for a walk.

Yep. Parenting seems to have left the building.

It's a bit of both.

And in particular, the amount of parents setting a terrible example by being glued to their own screens so often.

How old are your kids? If under 10, yes, hard agree. Secondary upwards and hahahahhahahhhhhaaaaaaaaa.... Forget it. It's completely impossible to control and parents that try are fighting a losing, exhausting battle against big tech. One we can't win without legislation. Australia have it right.

It's a combination of both.

Parents using screens to give them time to do other things or to distract the DC from a young age.

Then when DC are older, finding it difficult to limit screen time as DCs are so used to them.

Both are a problem.