to not bring my child up with technology??

[Babyblues14]

I hate seeing kids in prams holding phones or ipads. Surely children and supposed to be children. When I was younger I could play on own for hours and it was the best time of my life
My partner has a son who lives with us and although hes a teenager now there has never been a time where he is not on a pc, phone or games console. when he was smaller he would scream bloody murder if it was ever taken away from him.
Im currently pregnant and have no plans for my child to grow up like this but my family think Im mad. I just think its a lazy way to shut your kid up. I do use technology but only when necessary and I hardly used social media. I just want my child to have a real childhood instead of scaring at a screen. What do you think??

You have to find a balance as they are expected to know how to use tech in school . My DD friends are all hooked to their iPads but DD is not as we have always done things together and she prefers reading and art. I am not one for electronic baby sitters either and never really let DD have my phone , didn't want her to have an iPad but it's just a part of modern life now and if they don't know how to use them it will hinder them.

He knows my opinion on how he brought his kid up and he agrees that he did it all wrong.
Wow, poor bloke that you think that little of him.
He did it all wrong in raising his child.
I'm sure you'll never do anything lazy to make your life easier - especially after having minimal sleep for weeks and are ill.

It's sad that your happiest time in life was playing on your own as a child. Really sad

Wow. Save your pity.

I had a really happy and probably fairly privileged childhood, but some of my happiest moments were alone, playing quietly with my dolls and secret world of fairies and the like.

I was a very introverted child but perfectly happy. It's possible, you know.

I think the idea of holding off with technology until your child is school age is an excellent one, and certainly doable from my experience.

But what you should not do is imagine that this will result in some kind of superior product: children who never throw tantrums, or who have super-duper motor skills or adore books. They may or they may not. Whatever you do.

We had no telly until our youngest was about 6, no computer for family use until they got to SATS age, no iPads at all and mobile phones only by the time they got to secondary (and ds had to make do with a really basic one until they turned 15). We flooded their lives with books and outdoor experiences and encouraged them to help with the cooking.

Ds still struggled to tie his shoelaces until nearly secondary age and absolutely hates reading.

Motherhood is not like a slot machine: you can't put the right money in and press the button for your choice.

That's true Cory.

We have always had technology freely available (although iPads & smart phones weren't invented when my kids were small). Luckily as it happens - no-one teaches non-verbal kids to use google maps & you tube to communicate - ds1 worked that out by himself. If we had banned everything he'd still be stuck on pecs which he dropped years ago & we'd have no idea that he could remember places he last went when he was 2.

Anyhow - ds2 & ds3 have always had plenty of access to technology - ds3 at a younger age as he's 3 years younger. However, ds3 is our avid reader who uses computers to watch football matches or talk to his friends & not much else. Ds2 has never enjoyed fiction (even before iPads were invented he wasn't interested) but is the one who codes & builds games & is very drawn to technology. He knows his way around computer issues & computers much more freely than Ds3. He spends hours on computers (and also hours each week dancing & doing other performing arts before you start going on about weight again).

Age of introduction doesn't make much difference ime. If they're driven to become a computer geek they will become one.

Excellent, honest and refreshing post cory!

@CopperBoomCopperBoom - so - have you put the no technology rule into effect with a child, and if so, how is it working for you?

What people are objecting to about @Babyblue14's post is that she is being incredibly judgemental about something she has zero experience of herself.

As she said - she has already told her partner he brought up his son all wrong - yet she has never actually raised a child herself. She has a set of lovely, fluffy dreams in which she is the perfect mother and is raising the perfect child - and she is parading this dream as if it is reality, as if it has any real value compared to actual life experience of raising a child or children.

Frankly parenthood is hard enough without knowing that, when you are at the end of your tether with your child and lack of sleep, some random stranger with no experience at all will judge what you are doing as a last resort - and will post about it on the internet, and preach about what good parents should do, as opposed to what you are doing.

Pregnancy is supposed to be a time of happy dreams - we have all been there, and we all had similar dreams about how wonderful life with children was going to be. And then we had children, and had to come to grips with reality.

I don't want to deprive anyone of their lovely fluffy dream - all I want is for them to realise that it is NOT a fair basis on which to judge parents with actual children - and that a bit of kindness and tolerance goes a long way.

In theory fantastic, in practise when you've got that DC, life is going to be very different. Your prior expectations will change, you may God forbid on a long journey find yourself with a DC in the car with headphones on watching Peppa Pig, on a long journey for example.

That's where the slippery slope starts, then when they get to school and friends etc are on about games they're playing on their tablets, you're going to need a pretty robust reason as to why they're not like their school friends. Santa may get a list of two request a tablet.

Most of us had expectations prior to birth that in practise just don't work. In my day at an early age I'd run errands for my parents, my DS is in double figures and still seldom gets let out of sight. Even though it's the same route I happily took 30 years earlier.

I'd say report back to us in a few years and see if everything you anticipated came to fruition.

I play with my 6 month old loads but she also loves a bit of time watching baby sensory videos on YouTube or watching something on TV, not always cartoons, is fascinated by wildlife documentaries. Believe me it can be a huge help when you want 10 minutes peace to eat some lunch or wash dishes. Happy medium.

SDGT, I did put the dream into effect: I was the one telling stories and softly humming tunes during a 17 hour train journey to Berlin, I was the one setting up a cupboard with safe non-breakable utensils so dc could play at cookery while I did the real thing.

I don't actually regret doing it: it worked for us. I have some great memories, dh became an excellent story-teller, I didn't need my life made easier.

But it is not the Holy Grail of parenting. Nothing is the Holy Grail of parenting. Except possibly flexibility and a sense of humour.

When my boys were little, we didn't have tablets and smartphones - we did have mobiles but they just made calls and sent texts - so I didn't have technology to resort to - apart from TV. So on long train journeys I was telling stories, providing toys, pens, paper etc.

As they got older, they did watch TV - but they also played imaginative games, played with construction toys, played outdoors - we had a balance. Technology (such as we had, at the time) had its place - I didn't see TV as the axis of all evil, but it wasn't on all the time either.

I think it is great to have dreams and hopes about how you will parent - as you say, @corythatwas, flexibility and a sense of humour are the vital things. I think a bit of understanding of the fact that no-one is a Perfect Parent 100% of the time, is a good thing.

Yabu. My 3 year old.can turn on a phone. Call his dad or me if needed. He can send a recorded message. Open the games/ educational apps i have saved for him and play them. He can play games with a moise om the pc and use a track pad on the laptop. He can control the tv and put dvds on himself. He is tech savvy. He isnt allowed on these things all day but i wont have him behind of.his peers when they will probably be expected to know how to do these things at school. Everything is technology and coding now. It is part of life. He still plays with his toys amd his brother and has a great imagination. His 2 year old brother isnt far behind him. There is a balance to be had.

Sorry for spelling. Hand in a splint

There are studies now showing that children are no longer gaining the necessary fine motor skills they need, because they are no longer using or playing with traditional toys.

I was once told about a child will was being asked how to make a shape bigger, the child began to flick the shape in the same way that you would zoom in on a screen. That is bad!

I don't know Oops, is it bad? Genuinely not sure. I don't think I would know how to respond if someone told me to make a shape bigger - was it a drawing that he was meant to draw again? That's making a new shape. How old was the child? Potentially it seems quite a reasonable response to me. A bit cute/ funny the way children's misunderstandings are.

My 2 year old has pretty much zero screen time - some ipad time at Granny's so I'm not defensive on this issue.

I do hope you'll come back in a couple of years and let us know how that goes OP.

FWIW I was planning on my DD not watching TV as a baby. I reevaluated that plan when I realised she needed to do things like make lunch, wash bottles etc and she would be really upset unless I distracted her with TV (channel 623, I salute you) for twenty mins. This morning after being up umpteen times in the night I put a cartoon on my phone and dozed in bed while I held her for half an hour as I was so bloody shattered. However I have also played games, read books, done silly voices, answered her toy phone pretending to be an assortment of animals etc with her today so pretty sure she'll survive