Well off children & children who attend private school spend alot less time on screens?

[Ewetoo]

www.screenfreeparenting.com/rich-get-smart-poor-get-technology-new-digital-divide-school-choice/

Interesting article & I agree.. Well off parents can spend more time & money on enriching educational after school activities & sports. It's a no brainer... My wealthier friends are all off hiking, camping or biking with the kids who do a host of extracurriculars during the week & also happen to read loads.. My normal circles kids like my own love roblox & Minecraft & don't have the same after school activities & weekends spent chilling...

2 rich friends of mine inherited loads , went to private schools, dad had a rolls royce as a runabout car....!!...they wake up and tv goes on ...full blast...they sit on the sofa and watch it all day and night while snacking....if not watching the tv, they on amazon buying non stop....go on luxury hols and spend the days in the room watching more tv....bonkers....yet they probably had books and lots of activities while younger....!!...they are also now obese...!! so cant really get off the sofa...!!

My dc have very little screen time. They both horse ride and as I'm a single parent on low income I can't afford normal lessons for them so they have to put the hours and work in to get to ride. I also have a relaxed attitude towards it when they do have free time so it isn't something they are desperate to get their time on while they can so they generally do other things. We've holidayed with far weather friends who set limits and the whole day revolves around the hour they are allowed where as mine couldn't care less as they know they could have it if they wanted. I don't think it's all to do with income more to do with lifestyle

For those who have a culture of reading at home, how do you do it?? Our kids aren't on screens much at all but I'd love to know how you carve out time to read in front of the kids?

We read to them absolutely loads, and have plenty of books around the house. But I don't think I've ever had time to set an example of reading for my own enjoyment in front of them (apart from on holiday). Kids ate 5 and 7 btw.

I grew up on a council estate which also has a lot of grass areas. My mam still lives on the same estate and children are always out playing, so I can't imagine they spend much time on screen and certainly aren't well off. They don't need parents to pay for extra activities they just knock on the neighbours door "is X playing out".

It's not about being cash poor necessarily but time poor. As a lone parent (widowed so no 2nd parent at all) working ft I don't have many hours in the week spare to go biking /hiking etc or even to the park. I need to use a fair bit of our downtime to catch up on chores, cooking etc. That's when they end up on screens. The difference between my family and that of those around me is having the extra parent (sometimes a sahp) to actually take the children to activities and engage with them, I often envy it.

I don’t see it as a wealth/class divide. You can make a conscious choice to keep your kids as screen free as possible. Plenty of outside activities, local football clubs, athletics, parks are free. A love of reading encouraged early on. It’s a parenting choice, not a lack of money.

I agree but I think the “ bookish” kids of the past are the computer kids of today. The ones without the opportunity to go out or wanting to escape problems but with imagination.

I’ve taught lots of poorer kids who had zero interest in screens. The difference was they were out and about on their own. No parents supporting hiking, kayaking or cycling. Often their bikes were nicked and they’d nick one back.

I don't think it's a wealth thing for us - it's an active choice we've made irrespective of arbitrary markers like that. We have never wanted kids who crave screens and have a screen habit.

My kids are state schooled but we do biking, camping, sailing, hiking, reading, loads of extra curricular. Sometimes nothing much happens and they just make their own fun for hours.

We both work super hard but feel that defaulting to screens is something we want to avoid during our kids' free time - that has been an active choice for us a family because we want our kids to be fit, resourceful, outdoorsy, imaginative and well-read. I'm sure you can be all these things if you have loads of screen time too, but for us we've chosen not to and it's worked well.

1. that article is by 'screen free parenting' so potential bias. I'd be wary of the 'conclusion'.
2. it's US data, not Uk
3. the article is about the use of screens for learning. In schools. And how wealthier families can pay for an alternative like Montessori. The poorest cannot. And yet some posters have jumped straight on the 'poor parents are bad parents' bandwagon.
4. saying camping, hiking, biking are cheap activities emphasises to me that there are people completely clueless to the extent and effects of poverty and the extent of the cost of living crisis. If you live in inner city Birmingham, for example, where the hell do you think people are going to go hiking and camping? How will they travel there? How will they get time off to do that? How can they buy a tent? How can they get a bike and where can they store it? I'm alarmed whenever I read these sorts of threads on MN how ignorant some people are to the concept of financial barriers.

My kids get in from school (state secondary albeit 2 at grammar if that makes a difference) and they have 2-3 hours screen time every week day - we both work ft and don't get home until gone 6 and they all switch on the minute they are home which varies from 4-4:30pm. All those at private school get home a good hour later some nearer 6 will travel plus more have one SAHP (or now more likely to WFH due to higher propensity for white collar jobs)

Mine all do sport at the weekend and we do stuff as a family but they definitely have more screen time than I'd like but unless they self-regulate, not much I can do. (Did try switching off the Wi-Fi - they just go to mates houses!)

outdoorsy

Wondering what a working class 'outdoorsy' type does. I've only ever heard that word used to describe middle class kids. If they were working class, they'd be called feral.

My 3 are privately educated and all of DDs homework is online. They also have reading eggs, TT rockstars etc. DD plays on Roblox with school friends too. They all do a few extra curricular activities each and DD loves playing out with friends. DS 1 & 2 are too young to play out but spend loads of time in the garden playing and all 3 love Lego and would do it for hours.

we’ve never enforced strict rules around screens, just provided and suggested alternative entertainment and we’ve found they’ve struck a nice balance. I think holding something back so much often has the opposite effect and leads to the restricted thing being craved.
DD enjoys Roblox with friends but isn’t glued to it and if her iPad runs out of charge, she will happily leave it 1/2 days before popping it on charge as she’s busy doing other things.

@KarmaComma feral is the new cool for the middle classes! It gets thrown around at my DCs private school, usually followed by the infamous tinkly laugh.

I volunteered in dc's primary school and one thing that really stuck out was the more MC families filled their weekends with outdoor activities. Walking, hiking, kayaking, even just walking the dog as an These children would spend an hour before bed reading. I also know they were far more restrictive about screen time, having mobiles and consoles.
The more economically deprived children tended to have the latest consoles and spent most of their free time playing them. 'Family time' really didn't seem to feature, they would play in their bedrooms as they had their own TVs.

And agree, having a garden to play out in (or kick a ball) is a huge benefit that if you have it you don't appreciate what a difference it can make - I say that as someone who had a garden and now doesn't!

walking the dog as a family*

I dunno, I know a lot of parents who send their kids to private schools and the kids do nothing but play on their consoles or watch tv all day. Our son goes to a private school - we live in a non-English speaking country so my husbands employers pay for him to go to a private English speaking school - but if we lived in the UK he would be going to a state school because we are not in a position to pay for school fees ourselves. Some of the wealthier parents at this school spend very little time with their children and the Nannie's will often just plonk them in front of a screen, or the kids are so spoiled that the parents/nannies just don't say ever say no when they ask to watch tv or play their switch.
We are quite relaxed about screen time. Our son (7) has to get the school bus at just gone 7am and three days a week he has after school activities (football and cooking class) so most days he he is home by 4:30 - it's a long day. I have no issue with him coming home and watching tv or playing Mario kart when he's tired and in need of switching off. At the weekend he walks the dog with us, goes to the park, sees his friends, rides his bike etc - as long as he is not just spending time on screens then we don't really limit it on weekends. He's pretty good at saying he's bored of it and wants to build Lego or starts doing some drawing. And at bedtime he reads for an hour or so. I think there's a balance to be had, and I don't think it's always as clear cut as private school vs state school / rich vs poor.

My sister is a single mother with two boys. She is definitely classed as poor.

But she takes them camping and they do lots of outdoors activities. She's very clever about it. They don't want to watch TV. Not being rich doesn't have to mean being stuck on a computer.

My SS on the other hand has a wealthy mother and spends a fortune on computer games.

How can it be a class thing to not let your children be on screens all the time? It's just laziness.

I took my brownies away on camp recently and on the training session beforehand we had a discussion (lead by me) about phones and I said that there was absolutely no way that any of them were bringing a phone. (apart from our type one diabetic who uses a phone to monitor her sugar levels).
Everyone was up in arms saying that the parents would revolt - but I pointed out that barely any of the children actually had phones in my unit and my daughter didn't either - and she was a year older.

Some of my YouTube watching is junk, some of it is teaching myself about finance, and politics.

I prefer outdoors e.g. Woodlands bike riding and nature exploration.

At times I do photography, but that has phases where I'm active and other times im mellow.

Mumsnet is the majority of my screen time.

When my two were younger they had swimming lessons, dance lessons and were in Scouts so were away camping a lot of weekends. I wouldn't describe us as wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but their friends were also attending these activities. Their public school (non fee paying in Ireland) also had after school classes, for a nominal fee, such as crafts, gymnastics or drama. In other words they were kept busy partly because we both worked outside the home and partly because I attended piano lessons, brownies and girl guides, and swimming lessons when I was a child and wanted them to have the same experiences I and my sister's had. They are both dyslexic so used to attend workshops for dyslexia every Saturday morning too. One of my children isn't a fan of reading but the other likes reading for leisure now especially science fiction which is great.

High achieving adult with a private school education here.

Spent loads of time on screens. Even as a child, I was a massive introvert and had zero interest in sports. It's not as if my parents didn't encourage me to do other stuff - I just didn't want to. Children, much like adults, are individuals who like different things.

I can give you plenty of examples of people I went to school with who did and didn't spend loads of time on screens and did and didn't do well for themselves. Whether kids like spending time playing with tech is to do with their interests and personalities - it's not an indication of anything other than that.

This is propaganda by people with an agenda. Look at the source of that article. Obviously they want to support their own parenting decisions.

They can raise their kids with as little screen time as they like, but they shouldn't make anyone feel bad if their children happen to like technology.

I would say it really depends!
My DS is in a top private school and the devices are EVERYWHERE. All homework is done on a ipad, and has to be sent in electronically, it's all on google drive. This drives me mad, as we are very anti-screentime, but this has made us lose control. He sits at the ipad and it's hard for me to know what he is actually doing on it. He is the only one of 3 in class with no phone (age 11), and the vast majority have PS.
A lot of the children are of SE Asian origin, and they don't seem to have the same aversion to screentime as the European parents, if I am honest, so it's definitely cultural : our French/Spanish/Italian friends are much much stricter.

After I read to DS (6), he picks a book from his week library and we snuggle in his bed. I read my Kindle and we just chill out and read together for about 20/30 mins.

My children are privately educated geeky types who spend their time playing musical instruments, going to museums, reading and screening although they’re quite proactive and make videos and do coding courses rather than just sitting there for hours.

However from the outside it will look like: they’re on screens… again

compared to their classmates. Theyre honestly unusual though I think and yes I think the old trope of the middle classes and sports is completely true.