To think that toddlers don’t need screens when they’re out and about?

[anotherscroller]

From the other “things you find rude and others don’t” thread, but it’s quite a big one so I thought it could have its own thread.

Here goes:
People who give their toddlers (let’s say 18 months to age 4) tablets/phones to watch tv on in public during incredibly short interludes of time.
e.g. A train journey of less than an hour, a bus ride, while they’re ordering coffee at a café, at the bus stop. While they’re in their buggy being driven back from nursery! That one blows my mind.
If it’s a long haul flight I do it myself, but I think such young children don’t need a screen entertaining them the whole time. AIBU? They are interested in trees, ants, the contents of your bag, playing beekaboo with your sun hat, everything. Watching the world go by.
EXCEPTION: Unless they have, or their caregivers has, a health condition that requires it, makes life easier, make life worth living..

Why do I find it rude?
In the same why I find anything where people are shutting themselves off from other people in public and not being aware of others. Even with headphones on. With toddlers, as an adult with my own toddler, I feel like they and people around them are being deprived of the opportunity to “be present” together. My toddler always wants to be curious about a child on the next table, show them her teddy, or something, and nine times out of ten they can’t because said child is completely lobotomised in front of an iPad.
i think part of being a parent is creatively keeping small children occupied during a waiting time.
i think part of being a child is learning how to be ok with boredom or waiting time, and not constantly having flashy tv to watch.
AIBU?

I agree that for some, screens help distract and focus (my friend has an autistic DD and her ipad is literally a lifesaver and means my friend can function and get stuff done). But...yeah, have to say I agree with OP. The only times I've given my kids my phone to look at has been during a three hour hospital wait (when all the colouring books and toys I'd packed had lost their appeal) and when I met a very old friend for coffee, DD wasn't meant to be with me but my dad brought her along and left her, she was bored and restless and I did not want to cut my long overdue catch up short!

So there are exceptions. But as a rule, there is no need for a child to be glued to a phone on every occasion. Another friend's DS is addicted to screens, she lets him have them all the time, in the house and while out and about. They came to visit the other week and he literally had to be lured in to our house with her phone. She does have MH issues which means she struggles, so I'm not unsympathetic. But the lad is 5 and he's addicted. It's not good.

However, as someone pointed out - they see us doing it, so of course they think it is normal. Really trying to modify my own screen habits to address this.

YANBU. It’s crap, lazy parenting, and so bad for a toddler’s developing brain and speech. Just talk or sing to your child, FFS!

Talk or sing? OK then, Maria

Blimey, singing to a toddler for an hour long train journey? My vocal cords would give up the ghost well before we arrived at the station. Which is just as well for anyone nearby as I'm not a gifted singer, shall we say.

Whoah! Chill out mate. It was just a light-hearted observation brought on after 20 mins of, cow go moooo. Mooooo. Mooooo. My socks are white.

I'm not against kids breathing...as long as they do it quietly.

I've never even thought about locking kids away until they're 18, bit now you're suggesting it... 🤔Do you have a plan on how it could work? 😉 😄

SING!!!! OMG. Don't put these stupid ideas into people's heads. They'll be whipping out their guitars and tambourines all over the place.

Sing! FFS.

I don't like to see it and I'm glad they weren't around when my kids were that young. Seems to be perfectly acceptable now along with having the sound on full blast on train journeys 🙄

I don’t like the idea of it-however, my DD was bonkers, never wanted to go in a buggy/high chair or sling and honestly I never had any peace so I used screens far more than I’d planned to. I have no idea what my mum did back in the 70s because I was a non sleeping busy child

i also don’t know why we now have so many kids unable to function in public, having meltdowns and needing a screen to calm down. What did they do in the 70s?

Live and let live. You don’t know what other people are going through.

I was nervous about letting my son use a tablet to watch videos on an all-day train journey because of nosy nellies. Someone always has something to say about how people raise their kids. And imo, a child waiting on their food while watching a tablet isn’t bothering anyone. I wouldn’t let my kid bother people at another table. 🤷‍♀️

I would lose my shit if the people next to me were singing for an entire train journey!

Haha same. Whatever gets your child to keep quiet and not be a nuisance to everyone else, do it. I could care less if they were using screens but would care a whole lot if your child was loud and bothering me.

I think these kind of arguments, where you plot screens on a curve along with books and then going back to cave painting, minimise what is different about screens.
The addictive, compulsive nature of the content and the interactive experience, which is designed, both by humans and by machine learning, to get us wanting more and more and more.
In media history, we’re really talking about a radical change. It’s not just 21st century’s answer to novels and going all the way back, cave paintings.
It’s difficult to talk about also because many of us are addicted, and again, that’s not our fault on an individual level.

I do wonder at all the criticism of screens in one way, because the world is increasingly digital.

My brother is at university and he never writes anything, he doesn't even read actual books though he is studying law which is very reading heavy, everything is digital.

The world is very different than it was 20 years ago. I login to check my bank with my face, I can order shopping with a single tap, companies like Google and Meta are working on virtual reality and lens for your eyes. Years ago we couldn't have imagined how embedded phones would become. The rate of digital adoption is insane. And people like developers are highly sought after and very well paid jobs especially compared to more traditional careers.

It's true but there's also little parallel between somebody studying law compared to watching non-stop cocomelon. Most people don't outright reject tech (I'm sure loud of us food before we actually had children), but there's a difference between uses.

There still needs to be some time away. In my household, time out the house is time away from screens to engage with the real world.

I generally agree that toddlers shouldn't be stuck in front of a screen and I don't tend to do it with our DC. HOWEVER I have been that mum putting a phone in front of him for the walk home from nursery. Why? Because he had an absolute meltdown about getting into the pram and that was the only way I could bribe him, and he is too heavy for me to carry home. So I've done it once or twice, guess that makes me a crappy mum.

Wind your neck in and stop judging.

The buggy on the way home could just be to keep the child awake. After a busy day at nursery, children are tired and the motion of the pram sends many to sleep. The last thing anyone wants is for their child to nap at 5pm and a tablet keeps them occupied and awake.

My son is only 15 months old but he loves to grab my phone. The screen is always locked so the most he can do is make it light up if he accidentally touches the fingerprint unlocking. He mostly uses it as a mirror. I think if I gave it to him to play with in the pushchair he would wave it around excitedly and then launch it off the side where it would smash on the pavement.

We'll be waiting as long as possible to introduce screens.

My autistic child uses screens to self regulate. So he will have my phone or his tablet and will set it to something familiar that he likes, like a favourite song or tv show, and will just have it close to him almost as white noise to help him screen out the part of the world that he finds overwhelming.

We had to take him to minor injuries recently because he had bashed his chin, and he watched one particular scene of Teletubbies about 99 times in the waiting room. Prior to that he had been thrashing around, screaming, hitting me and himself. We found the bit of Teletubbies he likes and gradually I felt his whole body relax in my arms.

In his case it's an aid, not a hinderance. So please don't judge, somebody might have a child like mine, and because their disability is invisible you probably have no idea who might be like him and who isn't.

time out the house is time away from screens to engage with the real world.

100%
(if that is what your child needs, and that is what a neurotypical toddler does need, according to the very strong research mentioned above)

There are other ways to sooth a kid in a pushchair or keep them awake than give them a phone

Anyway, I think all views have been aired here.
Here’s an attempt at some conclusions:

• It seems like parents of children with autism are rightly offended by the idea that many (over half of the 500 people who voted on this forum, for instance) people think excessive screens when out and about is not good enough parenting, when they don’t have an understanding of their child’s condition. That is really fair enough, you have it hard enough without being judged as well for that.


• The thing to do is to raise more awareness of the condition, which you are doing already, so thank you for that. People will always judge, that is part of being human, people always notice what others are doing. But being aware will make people think twice and be more sympathetic.


• However, it also seems like the fear of not realising some children have autism should not shut down debate about screen use, for fear of offending some parents. Because the children who don’t benefit from screen use in the same way (incidentally the majority) will be the ones who suffer from this lack of debate, or a debate filled with people taking personal offense rather than forming shared approches as a society.


• So i think there does need to be a debate about this which excludes children with autism, simply because the effects on the child seem to be so opposite (positive vs negative), according to research (please correct me, I don’t know anything)


• There are extremely polarised opinions about the place of children in public spaces! I had no idea how people in Britain think about that and if this thread is a representative sample, I’ve learnt something! It seems like many people think that our public spaces should give priority to adults, and other sectors of society should make way for them. I don’t think it will stop me from interacting from strangers with my child though, as every experience we have had has been positive for everyone involved (yes, you can tell). But I will observe other children more carefully and double check they do want to play.

thanks everyone for contributing. ☀️

the onus shouldn’t be on parents of disabled children to educate the judgemental.

many parents of children with autism and other conditions don’t know when they are toddlers that they have the condition but that doesn’t mean the struggles aren’t still there and that parents will need to do what they need to do!

Yes you’re right. We should all talk about it more whether or not we know someone personally.

Sometimes I give DS an iPad and he colours on it. So what then? Is he lobotomised in front of a screen because he's doing something digitally that you would normally bring along for train journeys etc? I have to say I don't bring a screen out with me very often (except my phone but no one plays on that) but when I do DS is actually usually just doing the stuff digitally that you could bring along with you like a puzzle or colouring🤷‍♀️