To think current concerns over screen time is bordering hysteria

Op concentration, imagination, conversational skills … a bit of screen time is fine but having a screen mind a child is robbing them of a childhood. I will die on that hill after seeing the difference when after I make them actively take part in family life vs leaving them to it

I agree, the level of judgement re screens is ridiculous in my opinion and often those sitting in judgement are in a privileged position that they aren’t acknowledging.

I’m in my 40s. My mum had cancer when I was little, and I remember being cuddled up with her watching Disney videos and Sesame St over and over. I watched a LOT of tv in those days. I also grew up loving books, and art, and puzzles, and still do. I got a first class law degree, have a decent job, I play sport, I don’t think it harmed me one bit.

I went through cancer treatment for a year from DD being 4 months old, and then had a blood clot on my brain from the hormone blockers they stick you on when she was about 2. DH couldn’t just give up work so yes, like I did, DD also watched quite a bit of TV in those days. Do I think it’s harmed her? No. She’s now 4 and watches things appropriate for her age about 30 mins a day, some days she won’t watch any at all. And like I did, LOVES books. I don’t let her watch my phone because I am trying not to be on it too much myself!

Raise my daughter very similarly. Language delay. It's just one of those things sometimes. We read to her and she loves books, she can play independently and has a great imagination, she loves to help around the house etc, we talk to her, narrate our day, but still, very limited speech at the moment.

How is it incompatible with modern life though? The issue is kids are so addicted to screens they don't know what to do with themselves when they are switched off, and now parents dont know what to do with their children either.
I don't allow screens on week days and my kids play together, they do homework or read or play a game or go on the trampoline. Sometimes they are wrestling upstairs and yes it's noisy but thats kids being kids.
I think it's so sad when you see siblings who don't play together because the older one is only interested in computer games or the TV and barely interacts with their sibling.

Before screens, parents got things done. I’ve got nothing against anything, but if they are delaying speech etc, as health visitors, Paediatricians, and teachers say, perhaps parents need to restrict them a bit.

If that's the case I had a LOT of screen time as a kid in the 1980s. TV and computer games. And had a lot of time doing other things too. On the whole I think it's healthier than hours of homework.

I do support social media restrictions - I don’t think any child under 13 needs to watch tik tok etc however limiting screen time in its entirety is absurd - and pointless when all homework set for my reception age and above children is ALL on the computer / apps and so on - maths, English reading the lot. I find it annoying and irritating being lectured to by the kids school about screen time when they are the ones who have forced us to have a computer / tablet in our home which I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten until the kids were much older

If you have adult kids like I do (yours sound a bit older), they were not given access to tablets and phones from toddlerhood and probably saw no social media till teens. It’s a different kind of exposure now I think.

Well no, but I was thinking by screens we also meant tvs rather than just iPads and YouTube and X boxes so we are talking about 50 years ago…!

Dont get me wrong, I get that its difficult but I have a toddler and we made a conscious decision when she was born, to ban all screen time. My child is 3 and has never watched tv. They have seen tv in other people's houses and a previous nursery it turned out was giving screen time (we withdrew from the nursery as a result) and we have tv in our house so my child is aware of a screen and knows what it does i guess - but our tv is never on when she is awake. She never asks for tv because its never on and it doesnt feature in her life. My husband travels a lot with his work so sometimes I need to cook or do things that are not playing with my toddler and she has a pretty good attention span for playing with toys or entertaining herself, she also has a tower she can stand in to take her to kitchen counter height, so depending what im making, she might help out. My daughter has a noticeably better vocabulary than any other child her age who we come into contact with. This is commented on regularly and she is also very content, she can sit well at tables in restaurants and whilst some people offer children an ipad/tablet, we simply dont have reason to, she is able to sit and be bored. She has also always been a very good sleeper. My child is 3 so will these behaviours make any difference in 10 or 20 years - I will never know because this is how iv chosen to parent, i cant redo it another way to compare. Perhaps even my child would always have had these skills even if id let her watch some tv each evening. But i do fundamentally believe that cartoons now are designed to be addictive in a way that they werent when I grew up in the 90's. I accept that at some point my child will start using screens and probably have to use them every day for the rest of her life. At the very least, I hope i have helped her eyes for these few years and iv got to spend quality time engaging with her that I could have easily lost by plonking her infront of the tv.

I agree that alongside the time spent, the content of what they're accessing is a huge factor in the level of harm. Educational games, less harm than Fortnite or Kick the Doll etc

I don't think children should be able to interact with friends 24/7 or before they're well into their teens. That need some time away.

I also agree that using screens as babysitters for more than about half an hour is lazy parenting. Call it 'essential' if you must but it isn't. You made the decision to introduce screens the first time and it was for your convenience, not for their benefit.

It also sounds like his screen time is limited - because he's doing other things and living a full life.

Whilst I completely sympathise that your schedule and commitments with the kids sounds very overwhelming, i fell into this trap. I have been juggling a lot and my parenting with my youngest slipped. I relied on the TV/Ipad to pick up his attention when I needed a break or to get on with stuff and not having him under my feet. His screen time was growing more and more. I then noticed his behaviour began to decline, his attention span was appalling, and he began to refuse to play with toys and say they were boring. So I had a wake up call and pulled the lot! It only took 3 days to see a difference in his behaviour. He is back to his lovely polite self, he plays beautifully with his toys and is so imaginative, he's stopped telling me he is bored and just goes an plays. He still asks for the ipad but if he has had his 30 minute allowance then I am saying no.

Sometimes, it is a case of getting him to help me with the cooking, or putting something aside for him to do that I know will occupy him whilst I cook.

It's not the answer you will want but its a cautionary tale! You reap what you sew and it will come back to bite you later in life when you will have to address poor behaviour and reduce the screen time. I'd rather do that when the child is small and easier to distract than when they are older and more determined to get their own way.

Parenting is hard, but sometimes you have to do the hard work to make it easy. When my older son was small (now diagnosed ADHD) he was always worse behaved and more hyper after too much screen time - so we made it harder for ourselves in the short term (really really hard at times) by severely limiting screens, because in the long term it gets easier when you have a kid who can manage without screens. He's a delightful teenager so it has worked, but it was exhausting and definitely the hard option at the time. There's definite research around humans being short-term orientated so it's not good for us to be offered too many shortcuts, and that's all excessive screen time is.

There’s literal science and countless studies showing the damage screen time does to children’s brains, development, attention spans, hormones and attitudes towards their bodies etc.

There are always going to be outliers. Maybe your child is highly intelligent; studies seem to show that the most intelligent children are the ones least damaged by excessive screen time.

Dad eldest parent TV was around but only just they played in streets - sometimes bombed out ones.

There were pleanty of other kids about doing the same often siblings and cousins- and lots of usually related or known adults and way fewer cars. Wasn't always safe as kid did get injured but more people were just around and known to family than these days. He was born just before end second world war and grew up in 50s.

Dmum slightly younger never liked us playing out. She had to look after her younger brother and she wasn't keen for us to have same experiences she felt it unsafe even in our village where they were no relative uinlike Dad and Mums childhoods. We did a bit usually as part of a larger group but not often with brother getting much more freedom - and she got more against it as her daughters got near teen years.

It's differnet now - playing out happens a bit round here and is more common in early secondary school years - and didn't happen at all in previous location with kids - too many mad drivers not expecting kids to be out playing and often kids with DGP or in childcare as both parents worked rather than out in streets.

Well in the very old days, kids had a tot of something in their bottle to keep them quiet, this is the equivalent.

This is very true. Screens are not 'new' - my children had screens including iphones and are now adults - but the way that material is now programmed to totally capture our attention IS new.

The warning sign for me is that you say you can't get anything done unless they are on screens: how are they ever going to learn to self-regulate at school / college / work if you aren't teaching them to do so now?

They played. It's not so long ago that I was raising my kids in a remote part of the back of beyond where there was no TV and the least reliable internet ever. They got one video a day. Then they played. I do not remember them ever telling me they were bored.

Avoid YouTube whatever you can. Unless it's for a specific educational need.

And as they get older it's the social media- tiktok/ snapchat/ instagram/ facebook ( Whatsapp- but difficult to stop access to this)etc that you want to try and shield them from.

Explain how single parents were able to cook and tidy up before handing a child an iPad was invented?

You have created a situation in which nothing can get done unless your kids hav screens. Or did mothers in every generation before yours never get anything done because their kids had no screens? No. We kids were told to go and amuse ourselves. I told my kids they could get out of my hair and go play with their toys, or they could help me; those were the options. Sometimes they had no option and were required to help me. It was not a problem. You've made a rod for your own back here.

No wonder kids are in such a mess at school these days.

My kids were small 10 years ago, so plenty of screens around but not to the addictive level of now. I wasn't on my phone much back then so I paid more attention to my children, that is becoming harder and harder to do - I often have to physically force myself to put my phone down when the kids get home from school or they're chatting away to me or just want me to play a game with them. I have to force myself to prioritise them. Same with doing essential chores - i used to put cbeebies for 30 mins while cooking, but I'd be checking in on them and it would be kept to a minimum. These days the temptation would be to check my phone, rather than check in with them if I had a few minutes,and maybe spend a bit longer in the kitchen. The addictive algorithms are worse and the impact is increasing. You see kids in cafes and pubs and restaurants staring at phones and tablets instead of learning how to eat meals...they may as well not be there as their parents have pretty much just tuned them out.

That is disturbing

It's like Wall-e
With those fat people who are contained in the seats with a screen over their head- almost like a prison.