AIBU that reducing under 5s screen time is way more complicated than just issuing guidelines?

I spent the entire summer between primary and secondary school playing Frontier Elite on the family PC, whilst blasting Bon Jovi into my headphones. I remember the producer's (or editor's) strike one winter when instead of breakfast TV (with super-Mario or Pokemon every now and then for the kids) we got to watch back to back Happy Days.

We would come in from school, watch kids TV, then home and away, then back to BBC1 for neighbours, then channel 2 for Star Trek: TNG or Channel 4 for Games Master, then have dinner (after that the TV belonged to my parents)

I had plenty of screen time when I was a child - but it was all just what was available, it wasn't choice the way it is for our kids now - it's a completely different experience - like book schemes vs. free-reading

What benefits are those

Yet parents parented without relying on a screen (particularly when outside the home).

But you can't compare how parents are expected to parent now compared to back then. Parenting has become far more hands on because we no longer feel comfortable kicking our kids outside to play with the other neighbourhood kids until it's time to be called in for their tea. The induced panic of stranger danger and a huge increase in road traffic has curtailed our children's freedom over the decades and that's impacted how we parent – we have to micromanage playdates and we use screens to give ourselves a break from the relentlessness that our parents and their parents never had to deal with. So it's no wonder screen use has proliferated – kids spend more time indoors than they ever did.

I think it’s important to know that the people who invented all this like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates don’t let their children use iPads etc.

Widespread screen usage started in 1954 with the televising of the coronation. Watch With Mother started in 1952.

It’s guidelines for a tiny minority of the population…

My kids watched plenty of cbeebies/peppa/thomas under 5 years old - they also went into Reception both already reading, both have been in top groups all through school, love being outdoors and are thoroughly lovely kids.

There’s a massive difference between watching abit of tv whilst parents are doing jobs/getting ready or just chilling out and enjoying tv (heaven forbid!). Our days before school were filled with seeing friends, the park (every day!), walks, bike, scooter, feeding ducks, pre school several days a week (from 2 even when I was a SAHM back then as knew the benefits of it), toddler groups, soft play, strong routines, reading every day which has never stopped as older children. TV in a busy, varied day will never be an issue.

There’s a tiny minority of people who leave their kids on phones/tablets under 5 for long periods, don’t interact with them and are just plain and simple rubbish parents. Your child watching 2 hours of cbeebies in a day filled with tons of other things (toys, getting outdoors, reading, puzzles, colouring etc) and being brought up in a loving, caring family will do zero harm.

Our reception teacher actually sent home a list of great programmes/apps for the kids when they were 4 and 5.

Really? I was born in 1989 and had a TV and a PC. My husband was born in 1981 and describes spending hours a day glued to the TV and/or SEGA Megadrive. Maybe we were visited by time travellers from the future. My parents, who were born in the 1950s, describe both the above- being let out in the morning, walking themselves to school from Reception, spending their free time roaming the Welsh mountains unsupervised- AND watching TV.

You will reap the benefits later. Well done.

I think people are just scared of new technology and don't know how to use it. Tablets are radically different from the computers and TVs of my childhood - you don't have to sit there watching whatever they deign to present to you - you can be upside down on the sofa learning about the history of conflict in 1800s Eastern Europe, or watching an expert chef cook swiss rolls (if you're older). You can be watching Thomas the tank engine crashes and JCBs dancing, and people unboxing toys or whichever cartoon takes your fancy if you're younger (and doesn't annoy the parent who's in the same room overhearing it). You can play at cooking and feeding food to a wearwolf or giving lion a haircut, or swimming around in a fishtank or making music with a band, or running a town (my toddlers adored the toca-boca games)

And you can also run around the house, do jigsaws, colouring in, stickers, football and swimming.

YMMV but my teen/tween have not been harmed by their ipad usage - with the only rules being that what they watched was appropriate, and that if I asked them to put it away (dinner time) or watch something else (I found that particular cartoon/youtuber annoying/innapropriate) they would.

It annoys me that “screens” is used so sweepingly. There’s a world of difference between uncurated YouTube and watching Tangled. Just as there is a world of difference between cheap cartoons and programmes on CBeebies which are live presented (so children can see real mouths forming words)

Sorry. This is really not complicated. Children don’t need screens to entertain themselves. For eons children were perfectly happy and safe playing with toys or amusing themselves whilst parents got on with whatever they needed to.

There was usually one parent at home, and that parent generally sent the children out from the morning until the evening without adult supervision- except very rich children with nannies and governesses.

You know we are talking about the early 2000s here! Screens haven’t been around for that long!

We did zero screens at all before 2.5yr. And then less than 1hr per day until school age. It was hard work at times, yes, but absolutely worth it. Didn't plan on being screen free when I was pregnant, didn't even think about it tbh. But once the baby was here it just seemed a no-brainer.

Really the hardest aspect I'd say was the absolute isolation due to the pandemic, I'm disabled with chronic pain and it was a lot doing full long days of being on my own with him for days at a time. But just completely worth it. He's a proper bookworm, really advanced with speech and literacy. He's a screen fan now of course, I found it impossible to keep going past the time we did due to various reasons. But I do think regardless, those early years not being in front of a screen are so valuable.

Tv is very different to addictive interaction on a tablet/phone.
Also the post I made that you responded to mentioned specifically about how parents managed outside the home (ie waiting rooms, public transport etc).

also re-read the post saying that we need to develop more tolerance for boredom. Not every moment needs to be filled with cartoons and dopamine hits caused by playing on the ipad.

This is going to be harder for the parent short term. It’s a worthwhile investment as you won’t be creating screen addicted teens with no ability to focus on something (like GCSEs etc)

There should be no screen time in nursery. It's not allowed.

But they did watch TV. My brother was born 2001 and watched cbeebies, and I was born in 1987 and I assure you I also watched TV.

We’re talking about young children-
preschoolers weren’t using MySpace!

I was a teen in the 90s and had my first baby in the late 00s. I’m very aware of how things were in those decades.

It’s not that complicated. My child is under 18 and we carted colouring books, books, stickers, small figures etc to appointments, meals out etc. Yes, we enjoyed some appropriate child friendly tv, but they found activities to do. Both parents worked full time. It’s lazy parenting and the impact is quite apparent.

I assure you children raised in the 90s and 00s did use screens. 00s was all about MySpace and MSN messenger and we had phones too. Ok we didn't have unlimited internet access but the guidance isn't talking about that, a screen is a screen.

I think its the curating of ehat the kids are watching thats most potentially damaging tbh rather than time soent looking at a screen (unless its clearly excessive!) I can only speak for myself, I'm off full time with my son til he's 3 and freelance in the evening, so he doesn't get that much screen time because I'm out with him doing various playgroups or activities, or chores out. Try to be out all morning then he has lunch and then a nap, then in the afternoon for a few hrs I do have the TV, but I choose what he watches, his favourite are just youtube videos of construction sites. If something loud and annoying comes on it gets turned back to something calmer.

He doesn't need my full undivided attention all the time, he plays with his toys himself and I can dip in and out if I'm tidying, the TV is handy in the afternoon when I cook dinner. He doesn't have a tablet so has never asked for one, and he will happily play with his toys or look out the window for an hour or two on drives with no issues at all. On a flight once we downloaded some videos to my phone and he watched those on silent when he got bored, but he's never had it to hold himself in the pram etc, always been happy to watch the world go by.

I think it's not just amount but curating the screen time, ie I choose what he watches and its calm, not the fast paced addictive stuff that reduces attention spans. And hand held close to eye screens like tablets where the children quickly learn they can find their own stuff to watch, is more damaging than a curated bit of telly.

But I think the OP’s point is, times have changed. You really cannot compare fairly with “yesteryear.”

Sure, my mum managed without screens. But she and my dad could afford for her to be a SAHM even on my dad’s factory salary until I was at junior school. He had a defined benefit pension. My mum walked everywhere or took buses - which no longer exist. We had a row of local shops two minutes walk away, where we could buy all our food without being fleeced.

I don’t even know if there was a private full time nursery in my town.

There certainly wasn’t a breakfast club or an after school club at my school.

I was allowed to walk home from school at about age 8 and let myself in with a key my mum “hid” in a tin in the garage. I was allowed to “play out” in the street at a similar age.

In 1980s only 1 in 10 families was single parent. Now it’s 1 in 4.

Sure, we were poor - we ran one clapped out car and didn’t have any material possessions. People today would be horrified at how little “stuff” we had, how shabby our house was.

Today’s expectations are different.

It is MUCH harder to parent and work full time without a second adult in the family home. Of course you CAN parent without screens - but we need to fundamentally remake society and the economy to make it happen.

Yes, pre screen parenting was truly a beacon of health and respect wasn't it. 🤨

I think its the curating of ehat the kids are watching thats most potentially damaging tbh rather than time soent looking at a screen (unless its clearly excessive!) I can only speak for myself, I'm off full time with my son til he's 3, so he doesn't get that much screen time because I'm out with him doing various playgroups or activities, or chores out. Try to be out all morning then he has lunch and then a nap, then in the afternoon for a few hrs I do have the TV, but I choose what he watches, his favourite are just youtube videos of construction sites. If something loud and annoying comes on it gets turned back to something calmer.

He doesn't need my full undivided attention all the time, he plays with his toys himself and I can dip in and out if I'm tidying, the TV is handy in the afternoon when I cook dinner. He doesn't have a tablet so has never asked for one, and he will happily play with his toys or look out the window for an hour or two on drives with no issues at all. On a flight once we downloaded some videos to my phone and he watched those on silent when he got bored, but he's never had it to hold himself in the pram etc, always been happy to watch the world go by.

I think it's not just amount but curating the screen time, ie I choose what he watches and its calm, not the fast paced addictive stuff that reduces attention spans. And hand held close to eye screens like tablets where the children quickly learn they can find their own stuff to watch, is more damaging than a curated bit of telly.

if it has to be screens then id choose tv, otherwise books etc /