No screen use during car journeys, am I being old fashioned?

[midnightvelvetPart2]

I do not let our DC's (9 & 6) play on screens during car journeys but I'm wondering whether I'm being a little outdated? :) they have regular screen time at home & if we are stationary in traffic jams then they can use them, but if we are just driving along then they are not allowed. I'm talking tablets/DS/handheld gaming things.

I used to get carsick to the point of vomiting if I ever tried to read a book in a car, so I wasn't allowed & this may be influencing it. DS1 used to get carsick but he hasn't been in 4 years.

I'm doubting myself now as we drove back from holiday yesterday & it was a journey of 4 hours. My dad phoned, the kids complained about the journey & that they were bored & he said well they can play on their tablets etc but when I said they weren't allowed to he was a bit taken aback. We play I Spy & Sausage etc & have music & audiobooks on so its not a silent car, DS2 usually sleeps at some point.

What does everyone do?

I don't think that there is anything wrong with worrying about specific children doing specific things, that's just a part of parenting really isn't it?

My ds likes playing strategy games and can quite easily spend hours on them and get very irate about the opinions and actions of others. Sometimes I'm really pleased with all his social justice moments, but sometimes it gets a bit excessive. Then we talk about how to manage things better. Of course he is a teenager so it's all about negotiation. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I'm less comfortable with the absolute rules some parents seem to like. It's never been an approach that's worked for us.

We have issues with long car journeys as DC can't be entertained by radio, or if I'm driving, I can't communicate with them easily without stopping the car. (They are deaf and use sign language so not easy to drive keeping eyes on the road and "read" sign/sign back!)

They will fight "chat" with each other but are getting a bit old for I spy and the like. We have a DVD player so they can watch DVDs with subtitles and they do use tablets to read, watch endless Friends episodes, chat with RL friends, play games, watch endless YouTube videos etc

DC have a long car journey each day (special school out of borough) so with this, and the constraints above I just think...whatever makes it a little easier and more enjoyable for them.

My two most repeated parenting mantras are Everything In Moderation and Pick Your Battles. I apply them to most situations and it works for me mostly

Feline9 I don't think it's an all or nothing sort of deal. I'm not saying everyone should waft around "just existing" all the time - just that periods of quietness are fine and good. And we do stuff in the car - we talk, we listen to audiobooks that the children choose, we take turns choosing the music. I'm not talking about monastic seclusion or anything.

nooka I agree with you actually. I know I'm still finding out what works for my children.

Findo so what's the difference between those things and a screen?

Well OP I'm old-fashioned too! We've never had DVDs or tablets in the back of the car for our two. We do long journeys - South of England up to West Coast of Scotland. They entertain themselves with sticker books, magazines, games of Ispy, car spotting games etc. We're lucky that neither of them get car sick though. What was even nicer is that they didn't think the TV in the holiday cottage worked recently (and we didn't tell them otherwise) so we had a lovely week of no TV.

Feline9: well, like I said above really. For one of my children, the screen really sucks her in, in such a way she's not aware of anything or anyone else, and when the screen is turned off, she's furious for ages. There's something about that which feels wrong to me, and like I need to moderate somehow.

YABU

A long car journey is a boring thing. I really don't get the MN angst about screen time either - as long as they are happy, I'm happy, and probably because I don't limit screen time it's just seen as another way to while away the hours, along with games, reading, drawing, sleeping etc, rather than A Big Deal.

Findo but that could happen with anything, I was like that with fiction books. I once did nothing but read for 18 hours as a child. Yet if I'd have read an e-book for that long people would be going ballistic. It doesn't make sense to me.

I think a lot of people just get worked up about screens

Feline9: I guess. I probably do myself, if I'm honest. I've been thinking about this some more and I realise my approach to constant in-car entertainment might actually be based on: that end sequence in Wall-E where humans have become limbless blobs on floating chairs with screens attached, which really freaked me out; and also a sort of perverse love of 70s/80s car journey nostalgia, all that "are we nearly there yet?" stuff.

Car journeys in the 70s involved no seat belts, more people than seats, cigarette smoke, fights with siblings, and miles and miles of excruciating boredom .

Bring on the tablets, I say. Wonderful things.

The problem is on MN, there can never be a sensible discussion about screen time. It's evil and those of us who never monitored it should be ashamed of ourselves.
Just love my high achieving, university educated dc whose screen time was never monitored

Punkrocker, I don't know whether you're talking about me, but I don't think screen time is evil or that anyone should be ashamed of themselves. I've been clear on this thread that I'm only talking about my family, with our own individual quirks and stuff, not what I think anyone else should do.

Findo I'm with you there re Wall-E!

I might be on a bit of a screen detox though as I've just spent two weeks with friends who have a two year old who won't even be fed eat or sit in the car without an iPad blaring out YouTube nursery rhyme videos. It was sad to see.

This thread has reminded me of the holiday we had after our precious DVD player died (it had seen us through several longhaul drives).

The horror, the horror!

The DCs played together for hours, they sang songs, they played insane versions of I spy, 'go to bed' where they pretended to go to sleep every time we went under a bridge. Screaming every time we went up or down hills like they were on a roller coaster (we lived in the Netherlands at the time so hills were to be enjoyed!)

Honestly, it was ghastly. After that holiday we got the DCs a DVD player each so that they could sit in isolated silence and DH and I could get back to listening to what we wanted.

I think that sounds like great fun Gnome

Gnome - I am guessing that your children are a) not that old and b)doing what most children do, which is a mix of screens and games?

Findo I'm not talking about you, . I'm talking about the general angst on mn about screen time which is just crazy.

SillyStuffBiting, no it wasnt when it went on for a two day journey. Fun to start with but by the end it was just a bit manic.

SirChenjin, when planning a long journey the DCs would have travel blankets (their old baby blankets), pillows, phones and DVD players. They tended to have a mixture of films, audio books, music and sleeping. When we had just the one DVD player the DCs took it in turn to choose a film which they would all then have to watch or entertain themselves. Of course what this would mean was that DDs would fall asleep leaving DS to watch 'My little pony' as chosen by DD2.

BTW DCS are now late teens so would rather eat their own heads than travel with DH & me.

Sounds like most families....

The hand wringing over screens on MN really makes me smile. A combination of different types of entertainment with some down time sleeping or staring out of the window is what most children (who have not been banned from doing one of the above) will naturally do themselves to pass the time.

I like audio books because I can listen to them while driving

Purple I love both of your mantras, I use Pick Your Battles almost every single day of my life!

The DCs are 9 and 4 and will, if left unattended in the back of a car without some form of attention, fall out about everything. Today we drove home from Wales with them (they've been away with MIL) and this is what happened within 2 minutes of the engine starting;

"He's looking at me"
"Well if you weren't looking at me you wouldn't see me looking at you"
Two second pause
"Mum he's looking out of my window"
"I am a free man and will look out of all the windows if I want to"
"Leave my windows alone"
"Make me"
Three seconds of peace
"Muuuuum, he's breathing too close to me"
"For god's sake I have to breathe"
A minute goes by
"He's flaring his nostrils now"
"I can't be in control of my nostrils all the time, it's unreasonable"
Three minutes later
"He's angry at me, look at his face, it's so angry"
"That's my resting bitch face, it's like yours, Mummy"
"What's a westie bitch face?"
"It's what I inherited from Mummy"

Shortly after this I handed over their iPads and headphones and there was complete silence in the car for the following 3 hours. Without some iPad entertainment I strongly suspect I'd never travel further than 5 miles with them both in the car because they just cannot get on.

No, screen time, and specifically games ARE different from books and music.
We have computer games in the house, mainly Minecraft and Fifa, and I am fine with it in moderation. I played them as a kid, well, Sonic and Mario at any rate.
Thing is, games now are so sophisticated, they do completely suck kids in. I totally agree with whoever noted than some children can moderate themselves, and some can't, they get addicted. I would say my son would rather play Fifa or Minecraft than do almost anything else, and he loves reading, football, drawing. But. They do something different to our brains I reckon.
The meltdowns that occurred when ds started to get into gaming when he had to stop were epic like nothing else.
Ok, you might have dc who aren't that bothered. I don't so I have to regulate it.
I do think the snide comments about people advocating boredom never creating anything are pretty unecessary. I don't advocate boredom, but a bit of window gazing, and , you know thinking, creates what someone up thread described as mindfulness. There is something to that. If I take a kid on a bus and they say to me " I'm bored. Mum usually gives me her phone to play on" after 20 minutes I think that's fucked. You're on a bus from town. People watch fgs!

That's was v. Funny snapes !

I agree with RJ. If I only used screen time for one thing, it would be a long journey and not at home, visiting or on holiday where they can entertain themselves with activities and toys.

For those who think that it is a perfect opportunity to communicate and engage the children, I would wonder why? If you do this habitually on a daily basis then it wouldn't be so important during a long journey.